Laniarius barbarus
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days >90%
The yellow-crowned gonolek (Laniarius barbarus), also known as the common gonolek, is a medium-sized passerine bird in the bushshrike family. It is a common resident breeding bird in equatorial Africa from Senegal and Democratic Republic of Congo east to Ethiopia. It is a skulking bird and frequents dense undergrowth in forests and other wooded habitats. The nest is a cup structure in a bush or tree in which two eggs are laid.
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the yellow-crowned gonolek in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Senegal. He used the French name La pie-griesche rouge du Sénégal and the Latin Lanius Senegalensis ruber. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the yellow-crowned gonolek. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Lanius barbarus and cited Brisson's work. The... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Niokolo-Koba National Park | 🇸🇳 Senegal |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ouagadougou | 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso | |
| 2 | Accra | 🇬🇭 Ghana | |
| 3 | Serrekunda | 🇬🇲 Gambia | |
| 4 | Maiduguri | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 5 | Abuja | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 6 | Lagos | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 7 | Dakar | 🇸🇳 Senegal |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Berlin Zoological Garden | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 2 | Aquarium Berlin | 🇩🇪 Germany |
Very likely
About 70% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-crowned Gonolek sighting in Niokolo-Koba National Park on a given day, based on 345 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 12th most-seen of the 215 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January and April
In those months about 80% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-crowned Gonolek in Niokolo-Koba National Park on a given day, against about 50% in August, the lowest month. Those are among Niokolo-Koba National Park's driest months, with almost no rain against 300 mm in August. May–July and October have too few records to rate.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Yellow-crowned Gonolek sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Niokolo-Koba National Park, in our data
Niokolo-Koba National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Yellow-crowned Gonolek sightings: about 70% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Malaconotidae
The closest relatives of the Yellow-crowned Gonolek that you can see in Niokolo-Koba National Park (family Malaconotidae, Bushshrikes and Allies) are Northern Puffback (about 30%), Gray-headed Bushshrike (about 10%) and Black-crowned Tchagra (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Yellow-crowned Gonolek is recorded against all the birds logged in Niokolo-Koba National Park (345 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.
