Campephaga flava
Silhouette: PhyloPic
In 3 days ~70% in a week ~90%
The black cuckooshrike (Campephaga flava) is a species of bird in the cuckooshrike family Campephagidae. The species is closely related to Petit's cuckooshrike and the red-shouldered cuckooshrike, and forms a superspecies with them. It is also known as the African black cuckooshrike.
It is found in Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, dry savanna, and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland.
Black Cuckooshrike - Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds. Wikipedia →
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Black Cuckoo-shrike sighting in uMkhuze Game Reserve on a given day, based on 157 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 78th most-seen of the 283 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.
November
In that month about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Black Cuckoo-shrike in uMkhuze Game Reserve on a given day, against about 20% in January–March, May, July and September, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Black Cuckoo-shrike sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Among the best
Of the 41 parks where we can rate Black Cuckoo-shrike sightings, uMkhuze Game Reserve ranks 2nd at about 30%, level with the leaders once rounded. The best odds are in Arusha National Park (Tanzania, about 30%).
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the Black Cuckoo-shrike that you can see in uMkhuze Game Reserve (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Common Bulbul (about 80%), Red-shouldered Glossy-starling (about 70%) and Lesser Striped-Swallow (about 70%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Black Cuckoo-shrike is recorded against all the birds logged in uMkhuze Game Reserve (157 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.
