Ispidina picta
Silhouette: Rachael Joakim · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The African pygmy kingfisher (Ispidina picta) is a small insectivorous kingfisher found in the Afrotropics, mostly in woodland habitats. The African pygmy kingfisher was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Todier de Juida in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The type locality is Saint Louis, Senegal. The African pygmy kingfisher is now placed in the genus Ispidina that was introduced by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1848.
The specific epithet picta is from the Latin pictus meaning "painted". Some texts refer to this species as Ceyx pictus. There are three subspecies: Wikipedia →
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report an African Pygmy-Kingfisher sighting in Ruaha National Park on a given day, based on 11 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 229th most-seen of the 276 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May and June
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report an African Pygmy-Kingfisher in Ruaha National Park on a given day, against under 5% in July to April, the lowest months. Those are among Ruaha National Park's driest months, with about 5 mm of rain a month against 180 mm in January.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most African Pygmy-Kingfisher sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
15th of 30
Of the 30 parks where we can rate African Pygmy-Kingfisher sightings, Ruaha National Park ranks 15th at under 5%. The best odds are in Murchison Falls National Park (Uganda, about 20%), Kibale National Park (Uganda, about 20%) and Queen Elizabeth National Park (Uganda, about 20%).
Same family: Alcedinidae
The closest relatives of the African Pygmy-Kingfisher that you can see in Ruaha National Park (family Alcedinidae, Kingfishers) are Pied Kingfisher (about 40%), Woodland Kingfisher (about 20%) and Giant Kingfisher (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the African Pygmy-Kingfisher is recorded against all the birds logged in Ruaha 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.
