Campethera nubica
Silhouette: Pepe Reigada · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~70% in a week >90%
The Nubian woodpecker (Campethera nubica) is a species of bird in the family Picidae. It is distributed widely in Central and Eastern Africa, from Chad in west to Somalia in east and Tanzania in south. It is a fairly common species with a wide range, the population seems stable, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being of "least concern".
The Nubian woodpecker was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Nubia. 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 Picus nubicus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The Nubian woodpecker is now placed in the genus Campethera that was introduced by the English zoologist George Robert Gray in 1841. The generic name combines the... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Meru National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 2 | Ruaha National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 3 | Samburu National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 4 | Tsavo West National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 5 | Tarangire National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 6 | Lake Mburo National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 7 | Tsavo East National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 8 | Mkomazi National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 9 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 10 | Lake Nakuru National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 11 | Murchison Falls National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 12 | Serengeti National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 13 | Awash National Park | 🇪🇹 Ethiopia | |
| 14 | Queen Elizabeth National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 15 | Amboseli National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 16 | Arusha National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 17 | Ngorongoro Conservation Area | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 18 | Nairobi National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 19 | Lake Manyara National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 20 | Masai Mara National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 21 | Mikumi National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 22 | Kibale National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 23 | Bwindi Impenetrable National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mombasa | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 2 | Addis Ababa | 🇪🇹 Ethiopia | |
| 3 | Nairobi | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 4 | Kampala | 🇺🇬 Uganda |
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Nubian Woodpecker sighting in Samburu National Reserve on a given day, based on 384 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 54th most-seen of the 341 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 70%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April and June
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Nubian Woodpecker in Samburu National Reserve on a given day, against about 20% in February, the lowest month. Those are among Samburu National Reserve's wettest months, with about 55 mm of rain a month against 5 mm in September.
Between 3 and 6 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Nubian Woodpecker sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Among the best
Of the 23 parks where we can rate Nubian Woodpecker sightings, Samburu National Reserve ranks 3rd at about 40%, level with the leaders once rounded. The best odds are in Meru National Park (Kenya, about 40%) and Ruaha National Park (Tanzania, about 40%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Picidae
The closest relatives of the Nubian Woodpecker that you can see in Samburu National Reserve (family Picidae, Woodpeckers) are Cardinal Woodpecker (about 20%) and Bearded Woodpecker (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Nubian Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in Samburu National Reserve (384 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.
