Cittura cyanotis
Silhouette: Rachael Joakim · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~80% in a week >90%
The Sulawesi lilac kingfisher (Cittura cyanotis) is a species of kingfisher in the genus Cittura, found in the lowlands of the Indonesia island of Sulawesi and Lembeh. The specific epithet cyanotis is from classical Greek kuanos for "dark blue" and "-ōtis" for "eared". The first formal description of the Sulawesi lilac kingfishers were by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1824 under the binomial name Dacelo cyanotis.
It has the typical kingfisher shape, with a short tail and long bill. The adult male has a brown crown and back and rufous rump and tail. It has a blue eye mask, separated from the crown by a white line, and a pale lilac ruff of long stiffened ear covert feathers. The underparts are white and the wings are blue, separated by a white line from the brown back. The red bill is large and flattened. In flight, the underwings are white with a black "wrist" patch.
The call is a rapid ku-ku-ku-ku. The Sulawesi lilac kingfisher is found in lowland rainforest and drier hill forest up to 1,000 m (3,300 ft) altitude. It perches motionless on a low branch watching for its prey, mainly large insects, on the ground below. Little... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tangkoko Nature Reserve | 🇮🇩 Indonesia |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Likely
About 50% of wildlife watchers report a Sulawesi Lilac Kingfisher sighting in Tangkoko Nature Reserve on a given day, based on 540 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 13th most-seen of the 138 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.
October
In that month about 70% of wildlife watchers report a Sulawesi Lilac Kingfisher in Tangkoko Nature Reserve on a given day, against about 40% in June, September and November–January, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Sulawesi Lilac 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.
Only Tangkoko Nature Reserve, in our data
Tangkoko Nature Reserve is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Sulawesi Lilac Kingfisher sightings: about 50% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Alcedinidae
The closest relatives of the Sulawesi Lilac Kingfisher that you can see in Tangkoko Nature Reserve (family Alcedinidae, Kingfishers) are Green-backed Kingfisher (about 50%), Collared Kingfisher (about 40%) and Sulawesi Kingfisher (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Sulawesi Lilac Kingfisher is recorded against all the birds logged in Tangkoko Nature Reserve (540 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.
