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Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Lanius collurio

Identify the Red-backed Shrike by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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The Red-backed Shrike is a small predatory songbird of open, bushy country that breeds across much of Europe and western Asia and winters in eastern and southern Africa. Males have a grey head, a bold black mask and a chestnut back, while females and young are browner and finely barred. It hunts from exposed perches and impales surplus prey on thorns, earning it the nickname “butcher bird”. It has declined in many regions.

Did you know?

  • It creates a “larder” by impaling prey on thorns or barbed wire.
  • The word “shrike” comes from an Old English word for “shriek”, after its sharp call.

Voice

Song
Call
Alarm call

About the species

Identification

Male: a broad black eye mask, pale grey crown and nape, white throat, chestnut back and pale pinkish underparts; often a narrow white line above the mask. The tail is black with white at the base of the outer feathers. Female: brown to brown-grey crown and dull brown back, dirty whitish underparts with coarse scaly barring and a brown mask. The male's chestnut back, broad black mask and black-and-white tail pattern separate it from other shrikes.

Family

Laniidae

Size

Small (sparrow)

Colours

brown, grey, black, white

About the habitat

Open or semi-open country with scattered shrubs and thorny bushes – hedgerows, bushy pastures, field margins, clear-cuts, young plantations and woodland edges.

Diet

Mainly large insects such as beetles, grasshoppers, bumblebees, wasps and dragonflies; also spiders and small vertebrates such as lizards, voles and small birds.

Behaviour

Hunts by watching from a prominent perch and dropping or darting out to seize prey, which it often stores by impaling on thorns or barbed wire. It is assertive and territorial in the breeding season and has a harsh, scolding call. A long-distance migrant.

Sources

Photo: Antonios Tsaknakis, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red-backed shrike.jpg

Sound: Pascal Christe, XC799451, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/799451

Sound: Pascal Christe, XC799455, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/799455

Sound: Pascal Christe, XC1156720, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/1156720

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions, CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-backed_shrike

See also