Syrmaticus soemmerringii
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10%
The copper pheasant (Syrmaticus soemmerringii), also known as Soemmerring's pheasant or yamadori (ヤマドリ), is a pheasant endemic to the Japanese archipelago. The scientific name commemorates the German scientist Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring. It is the official bird of multiple Japanese prefectures, cities, and towns. It was commonly hunted for sport throughout the 20th century.
Its population has been in consistent decline since the 1970s due to factors including habitat destruction and predation, but the most widely cited cause is overhunting. The copper pheasant was described in 1830 by Coenraad Temmerick as Phasianus soemmerringii. It was named for the German scientist Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, while the subspecies S. s. ijimae is named for Japanese zoologist Isao Ijima. It was reclassified into the Syrmaticus genus in 1914 by William Beebe, despite the differences between the males, because he saw a high number of similarities between females of the genus. However, based on the reports of interbreeding between the copper pheasant and the green pheasant (Phasianus versicolor) in Nobusuke Takatsukasa's 1943 pamphlet, Studies of the Galli of Nippon, the Ornithological... Wikipedia →
Recording0:22
Japan · 2026
© Timur Kalininsky · iNaturalist · CC BY 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nikko National Park | 🇯🇵 Japan |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tierpark Berlin | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 2 | Inokashira Park Zoo | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 3 | Zoo Koki (Parque zoológico y botánico) | 🇪🇸 Spain |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Copper Pheasant sighting in Nikko National Park on a given day, based on 11 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 92nd most-seen of the 102 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Copper Pheasant in Nikko National Park on a given day, against under 5% in June to April, the lowest months.
Between 2 and 5 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Copper Pheasant sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Nikko National Park, in our data
Nikko National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Copper Pheasant sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Copper Pheasant is recorded against all the birds logged in Nikko National Park (11 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.
