Cisticola brachypterus
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
The short-winged cisticola (Cisticola brachypterus), also known as the siffling cisticola, is a species of bird in the family Cisticolidae. It is found in Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The short-winged cisticola resembles the neddicky, a similar member of the genus Cisticola, but lacks the rufous crown with a shorter tail and clear buff underparts. The short-winged cisticola was formally described in 1870 by the English ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe based on a specimen collected near the Volta River in Ghana and sent to him by the colonial administrator Herbert Taylor Ussher. Sharpe coined the binomial name Drymoeca brachyptera where the specific epithet is from Ancient Greek βραχυπτερος/brakhupteros meaning "short-winged", from βραχυς/brakhus meaning "short" and -πτερος/'-pteros' meaning "-winged". The short-winged cisticola... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nairobi National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 2 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 3 | Nyungwe National Park | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 4 | Arusha National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 5 | Murchison Falls National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 6 | Queen Elizabeth National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 7 | Kafue National Park | 🇿🇲 Zambia | |
| 8 | Gorongosa National Park | 🇲🇿 Mozambique | |
| 9 | Lake Mburo National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 10 | Ngorongoro Conservation Area | 🇹🇿 Tanzania |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Siffling Cisticola sighting in Queen Elizabeth National Park on a given day, based on 61 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 240th most-seen of the 434 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May and September–October
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Siffling Cisticola in Queen Elizabeth National Park on a given day, against under 5% in June–August and November–April, the lowest months. Those are among Queen Elizabeth National Park's wettest months, with about 110 mm of rain a month against 15 mm in January.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Siffling Cisticola sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
6th of 10
Of the 10 parks where we can rate Siffling Cisticola sightings, Queen Elizabeth National Park ranks 6th at under 5%. The best odds are in Nairobi National Park (Kenya, about 20%), Kidepo Valley National Park (Uganda, about 20%) and Nyungwe National Park (Rwanda, about 10%).
Same genus: Cisticola
The closest relatives of the Siffling Cisticola that you can see in Queen Elizabeth National Park (genus Cisticola, Cisticolas) are Zitting Cisticola (about 30%), Croaking Cisticola (about 20%) and Trilling Cisticola (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Siffling Cisticola is recorded against all the birds logged in Queen Elizabeth National Park (61 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.
