male	male female European distribution adult male on bush rear view

Identification

The male is unmistakably colourful with a red back, mostly black tail, blue-grey rump and head and a characteristic black highwayman's mask. Females and juveniles are duller brown but still have the heavy beak and a suggestion of a mask. Most importantly, they have prominently scaly underparts.

Habitat

Breeds on heaths and commons with thorn bushes and gorse.

Behaviour

Shrikes sometimes impale their prey on the thorns of a particular bush, thus keeping a 'larder' for food they've already caught.

Migration

Migrates to tropical Africa from August to September.

This information is taken from the BirdFile on the appropriate BirdGuides DVD-ROM. As well as video and sounds, our CD- and DVD-ROMs contain additional text on Voice, Sexing, Ageing, Food, Nests and Eggs and more.

For the purposes of our bird news services, Red-backed Shrike is classed as Scarce: broadly speaking, species that are covered in British Birds' annual review of scarce species (and forms of similar rarity).

Biggleswade, Beds 01/09/2010	Stolford, Somerset 01/09/2010	Biggleswade, Beds 01/09/2010	Biggleswade, Beds 01/09/2010	Biggleswade, Beds 01/09/2010
Biggleswade, Beds 01/09/2010	Kotlin Island, Leningrad Oblast, Russia (Europe) 28/08/2010	Biggleswade, Beds 31/08/2010	Biggleswade, Beds 30/08/2010	Biggleswade, Beds 30/08/2010

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Red-backed Shrike breeds in the following countries (Bird News Extra subscribers will see population statistics and information on trends for each country):

Albania
Andorra
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Britain
Bulgaria
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Italy
Latvia
Lichtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Moldova
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Serbia and Montenegro
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Ukraine

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	Overseas Days to Remember: Birding in East Africa - Lesser Kestrels and Red-backed Shrikes	Tuesday 28th May 2002
	Birding abroad can often be an eye-opener, in terms of culture, scenery and unfamiliar birds. However, it can also provide some fantastic spectacles of some of our scarcer species and rarities. Peter Turner recounts two exceptional events from the 1970s when he was in East Africa.

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