Long-tailed Shrike

Appearance

The Long-tailed Shrike is a typical shrike, favouring dry open habitats and found perched prominently atop a bush or on a wire.

The dark mask through the eye is broad and covers the forehead in most subspecies and the whole head is black in subspecies "tricolor" and "nasutus". The tail is narrow and graduated with pale rufous on the outer feathers.

Subspecies "erythronotus" has the grey of the mantle and upper back suffused with rufous while the southern Indian "caniceps" has pure grey. A small amount of white is present at the base of the primaries. The Bay-backed Shrike is smaller and more contrastingly patterned and has a more prominent white patch on the wing. The sexes are alike in plumage.

Distribution

The species is found across Asia from Kazhakstan to New Guinea. It is found mainly in scrub and open habitats. Many of the temperate zone populations are migratory, moving south in winter while those in the tropics tend to be sedentary although they may make short distance movements.

This species is a rare vagrant to western Europe on the strength of two accepted records in Great Britain on South Uist in November 2000 and the Netherlands near Den Helder in October 2011.

Behavior

This bird has a characteristic upright "shrike" attitude when perched on a bush, from which it glides down at an angle to take lizards, large insects, small birds and rodents. They maintain feeding territories and are usually found single or in pairs that are well spaced out.

They are capable of vocal mimicry and include the calls of many species including lapwings, cuckoos, puppies and squirrels in their song. This singing ability makes it a popular pet in parts of southeast Asia.

Reproduction

The breeding season is in summer in the temperate ranges. The nest is a deep and loose cup made up of thorny twigs, rags and hair. This is placed in a thorny bush, trees such as "Flacourtia" and wild date palms. The usual clutch is about 3 to 6 eggs which are incubated by both sexes.

The eggs hatch after about 13 to 16 days. Young chicks are often fed with pieces of small birds captured by the parents. A second brood may be raised in the same nest. They are sometimes parasitized by cuckoos such as the Common Cuckoo, Common Hawk-Cuckoo, Jacobin Cuckoo and the Asian Koel in Bangladesh.

Food

Long-tailed Shrikes take a wide variety of animal prey. On occasion, they have been noted capturing fish from a stream. They also take small snakes. It sometimes indulges in kleptoparasitism and takes prey from other birds.

It also captures flying insects in the air. They sometimes impale prey on a thorny bush after feeding just on the head or brain. They have been reported to feed on the fruits of the neem in Kerala, even attempting to impale them on a twig.