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Lanius collurio (female)
Photographed in
Raša (Arsia) area. |
Red-backed Shrike
(Averla piccola,
Rusi svračak -
Lanius collurio,
Linnaeus 1758))
The red-backed shrike (Lanius collurio)
is a carnivorous passerine bird and member of the shrike family
Laniidae. The breeding range stretches from Western Europe east to
central Russia but it only rarely occurs in the British Isles. It is
migratory and winters in the western areas of tropical Africa.
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- Kingdom:
Animalia
- Phylum:
Chordata
- Class:
Aves
- Order:
Passeriformes
- Family: Laniidae
- Genus: Lanius
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Yellow: summer breeding
grounds
Purple: passage visitor |
Above: male
Below: female |
The red-backed shrike was
formally described by the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the
tenth edition of his
Systema Naturae under its current
binomial name Lanius collurio.
The genus name,
Lanius,
is derived from the
Latin
word for "butcher",
and some shrikes are also known as "butcher birds" because of their
feeding habits. The specific collurio is from
Ancient Greek kollurion, a bird mentioned by
Aristotle.
The common English name "shrike" is from
Old English scríc, "shriek", referring to the shrill
call.
This 16–18 cm (approx. 6.3–7.1 inches) long
migratory bird eats large
insects, small
birds,
frogs,
rodents and
lizards. Like other shrikes it hunts from prominent perches, and
impales corpses on thorns or barbed wire as a "larder."
This practice has earned it the nickname of "butcher bird."
The general colour of the male’s upper parts is
reddish. It has a grey head and a typical shrike black stripe
through the eye. Underparts are tinged pink, and the tail has a
black and white pattern similar to that of a
wheatear. In the female and young birds the upperparts are brown
and vermiculated. Underparts are buff and also vermiculated.
This bird breeds in most of Europe and
western Asia and winters in tropical Africa. Its range is contracting,
and it is now probably extinct in Great Britain as a breeding bird,
although it is frequent on migration. It is named as a protected bird in
Britain under a
Biodiversity Action Plan; its decline is due to overuse of
pesticides and scrub clearance due to human overpopulation. It breeds in
open cultivated country with hawthorn and dog rose.
The general colour of the male’s upper
parts is reddish. It has a grey head and a typical shrike black stripe
through the eye. Underparts are tinged pink, and the tail has a black
and white pattern similar to that of a wheatear. In the female and young
birds the upperparts are brown and vermiculated. Underparts are buff and
also vermiculated.
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Lanius collurio
(male)
Photographed in Raša
(Arsia) area. |
Sources:
- Text -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrike and other links
-
http://www.birdguides.com/html/vidlib/species/Lanius_collurio.htm
- Photos - Loris Dilena & Giuseppe Turzi Istria - Cherso - Lussino
- Veglia, guida naturalistica, Sergio Schiberna (Trieste, 1997).
All rights reserved.
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