Laniarius barbarus
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~70% in a week ~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...
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Niokolo-Koba National Park | 🇸🇳 Senegal | |
| 2 | Mole National Park | 🇬🇭 Ghana | |
| 3 | Saloum Delta National Park | 🇸🇳 Senegal | |
| 4 | Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary | 🇸🇳 Senegal |
| # | 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 |
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-crowned Gonolek sighting in Saloum Delta National Park on a given day, based on 14 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 35th most-seen of the 70 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 70%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
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.
3rd of 4
Of the 4 parks where we can rate Yellow-crowned Gonolek sightings, Saloum Delta National Park ranks 3rd at about 30%. The best odds are in Niokolo-Koba National Park (Senegal, about 70%) and Mole National Park (Ghana, about 50%). All parks ranked.
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the Yellow-crowned Gonolek that you can see in Saloum Delta National Park (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Common Bulbul (about 50%), Pied Crow (about 50%) and Long-tailed Glossy Starling (about 40%), 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 Saloum Delta National Park (14 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.
