Poeoptera kenricki
Silhouette: Rafael Maia · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5%
Kenrick's starling (Poeoptera kenricki) is a species of starling in the family Sturnidae. It is found in Kenya and Tanzania. Kenrick's starling was described by George Ernest Shelley in 1894 and was named after Major Reginald Watkin Edward-Kenrick, an officer in the British army who collected the holotype in the Usambara Mountains in Tanzania. Shelley placed the starling in the obsolete genus Stillbopsar, which was composed of it alongside Stuhlmann's starling. It is now placed in the genus Poeoptera, meaning "poet bird" in Greek, with Poeo being a variation of the Greek poiéō which means "to create" - being the origin of poema, the Latin word for poem - and ptera coming from the pterá which means wing. Up until the mid 20th century, some authorities considered it conspecific with Stuhlmann's starling, or treated it as one single subspecies. There are currently two recognized subspecies:
Poeoptera kenricki kenricki - (Shelley, 1894): Nominate subspecies, described from the mountainous montane forests of Tanzania Poeoptera kenricki bensoni - (Van Someren, 1945): Found around the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya
Kenrick's starling is a medium-sized bird... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arusha National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 2 | Ngorongoro Conservation Area | 🇹🇿 Tanzania |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Kenrick's Starling sighting in Ngorongoro Conservation Area on a given day, based on 7 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 485th most-seen of the 519 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Kenrick's Starling in Ngorongoro Conservation Area on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Kenrick's Starling sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 2
Of the 2 parks where we can rate Kenrick's Starling sightings, Ngorongoro Conservation Area ranks 2nd at under 5%. The best odds are in Arusha National Park (Tanzania, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Kenrick's Starling is recorded against all the birds logged in Ngorongoro Conservation Area (7 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
