Woodchat Shrike

Woodchat Shrike
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Laniidae
Genus:	Lanius
Species:	L. senator
Binomial name
Lanius senator Linnaeus, 1758
Summer      Winter

The Woodchat Shrike (Lanius senator) is a member of the shrike family Laniidae.

The Woodchat breeds in southern Europe, the Middle East and northwest Africa, and winters in tropical Africa. It breeds in open cultivated country, preferably with orchard trees and some bare or sandy ground.

This migratory medium-sized passerine eats large insects, small birds and small amphibians. Like other shrikes it hunts from prominent perches, and impales corpses on thorns or barbed wire as a "larder".

The male is a striking bird with black and white plumage and a chestnut crown. The race L. s. badius of the western Mediterranean lacks the large white wing patches.

In the female and young birds the upperparts are brown and vermiculated. Underparts are buff and also vermiculated.

This species often overshoots its breeding range on spring migration, and is a rare, but annual, visitor to Great Britain. The Balearic race badius has occurred in Britain around four times as a vagrant, and has also been recorded once in Ireland.

References

• BirdLife International (2004). Lanius senator. 2006. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. www.iucnredlist.org. Retrieved on 12 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern.

External links

• Media related to Lanius senator at Wikimedia Commons
• Data related to Lanius senator at Wikispecies
• Lanius senator in the Flickr: Field Guide Birds of the World
• Lanius senator on Avibase
• Woodchat Shrike videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection
• Oiseaux, pictures (French)
• Ageing and sexing (PDF) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta