Pseudonigrita arnaudi
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~80% in a week >90%
The grey-capped social weaver (Pseudonigrita arnaudi) is a sparrow-like liver-colored bird, with a pale grey crown, a dark grey bill, a whitish eye-ring, horn-colored legs, with some black in the wing and a light terminal band in the tail, that builds roofed nests made of straws, breeds in colonies in thorny Acacia trees, and feeds in groups gathering grass seeds and insects. Male and female have near identical plumage. DNA-analysis confirms it is part of the weaver family. It is found in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte described the grey-capped social weaver as Nigrita arnaudi in 1850. He chose the specific epithet to honor Joseph Pons d'Arnaud, the French explorer who had collected a specimen around 1841 near Juba on the White Nile, and sent it to the French Museum of Natural History. In 1903, the German zoologist Anton Reichenow assigned the species to his newly erected genus Pseudonigrita, because he considered P. arnaudi and P. cabanisi related to weaverbirds (Ploceidae), while the other species Nigrita bicolor, N. canicapillus, N. fusconota and N. luteifrons are negrofinches assigned... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ruaha National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 2 | Serengeti National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 3 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 4 | Masai Mara National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 5 | Ngorongoro Conservation Area | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 6 | Amboseli National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 7 | Tsavo West National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 8 | Nairobi National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 9 | Tarangire National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 10 | Samburu National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 11 | Tsavo East National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya |
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Gray-headed Social-Weaver sighting in Serengeti National Park on a given day, based on 1,402 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 30th most-seen of the 469 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 80%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April and December
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Gray-headed Social-Weaver in Serengeti National Park on a given day, against about 20% in September, the lowest month. Those are among Serengeti National Park's wettest months, with about 130 mm of rain a month against 5 mm in July.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Gray-headed Social-Weaver sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 11
Of the 11 parks where we can rate Gray-headed Social-Weaver sightings, Serengeti National Park ranks 2nd at about 40%. The best odds are in Ruaha National Park (Tanzania, about 50%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Passeridae
The closest relatives of the Gray-headed Social-Weaver that you can see in Serengeti National Park (family Passeridae, Old World Sparrows) are Rufous-tailed Weaver (about 40%), Swahili Sparrow (about 30%) and Kenya Rufous Sparrow (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Gray-headed Social-Weaver is recorded against all the birds logged in Serengeti National Park (1,402 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.
