Dessonornis caffer
Silhouette: Martin Bulla, based on François Desbordes' illustration · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The Cape robin-chat (Dessonornis caffer) is a small passerine bird of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. It has a disjunct range from South Sudan to South Africa. The locally familiar and confiding species has colonized and benefited from a range of man-altered habitats, including city suburbs and farmstead woodlots. It is an accomplished songster like other robin-chats, but is rather less colourful than most, and frequents either drier settings or higher altitudes. It forages in the proximity of cover, in the open or in fairly well-lit environments. Its distribution resembles that of the karoo–olive complex of thrushes, but it prefers the bracken-briar fringes of Afromontane forest, and does not enter far into forest proper. It is altitudinally segregated from the red-capped robin-chat, and is less of a skulker.
The Cape robin-chat was formally described in 1771 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus under the binomial name Motacilla caffra. He specified the type locality as the Cape of Good Hope. The specific epithet caffra is Modern Latin for South Africa. The Cape robin-chat was formerly assigned to the genus Cossypha but is now one of four species placed... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | De Hoop Nature Reserve | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Table Mountain National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 3 | Golden Gate Highlands National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 4 | Aberdare National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 5 | Volcanoes National Park | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 6 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 7 | West Coast National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 8 | Nairobi National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 9 | Addo Elephant National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 10 | Arusha National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 11 | Nyungwe National Park | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 12 | Ngorongoro Conservation Area | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 13 | Virunga National Park | 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo | |
| 14 | Mkomazi National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 15 | Lake Nakuru National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 16 | Pilanesberg National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 17 | Masai Mara National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 18 | iSimangaliso Wetland Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 19 | Kruger National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 20 | Serengeti National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Johannesburg | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Pretoria | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 3 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 4 | Nairobi | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 5 | Durban | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 2 | Edward Youde Aviary | 🇭🇰 Hong Kong SAR China |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Cape Robin-Chat sighting in Virunga National Park on a given day, based on 75 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 57th most-seen of the 316 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
December
In that month about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Cape Robin-Chat in Virunga National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March, the lowest month. That is one of Virunga National Park's driest months, with about 80 mm of rain against 250 mm in May.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Cape Robin-Chat sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
13th of 20
Of the 20 parks where we can rate Cape Robin-Chat sightings, Virunga National Park ranks 13th at about 20%. The best odds are in De Hoop Nature Reserve (South Africa, about 60%), Table Mountain National Park (South Africa, about 60%) and Golden Gate Highlands National Park (South Africa, about 50%). All parks ranked.
Same genus: Cossypha
The closest relatives of the Cape Robin-Chat that you can see in Virunga National Park (genus Cossypha, Typical Robin-Chats) are White-browed Robin-Chat (about 20%), Archer's Robin-Chat (about 10%) and Snowy-crowned Robin-Chat (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Cape Robin-Chat is recorded against all the birds logged in Virunga National Park (75 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.
