Grey Shrike (Lanius Excubitor)

The grey shrike is a medium sized bird of silver-grey colour with a longish black & white tail and looks somewhat like a house sparrow only slightly bigger. It has a distinctive black ‘mask’ from the bill through the eye. A conspicuous white patch unfolds on the wings when the bird is in flight. The grey shrike has a rather harsh almost raucous call but when the breeding male is out impressing its female counterparts it sings a pleasing tinkling song. The bird is also a good mimicker of other birds’ calls, so don’t be surprised when you hear a crow and look up to see the grey shrike.


¤ Found In

This bird inhabits the semi-desert areas scattered with thorny bushes all along the dry areas of Pakistan and Western India and also a small area in eastern India. The grey shrike is known to be a local migrant and has been reported down south in a patch covering parts of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka in the winters. Its habitat offers it a large variety of lizards, mice and insects and the grey shrike seem to enjoy the abundance.
It is known as the ‘butcher bird’ because it has this strange habit of killing in excess and storing the leftovers impaled on thorns. But even the butcher bird needs to run when it is threatened and it does it by diving down from its perch and flying real close to the ground for a good 20m before shooting up to perch again.