# UKBirds

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## Great Grey Shrike

### Lanius excubitor

The Great Grey Shrike, Northern Grey Shrike, or Northern Shrike (Lanius excubitor) is a large songbird species in the shrike family (Laniidae). It forms a superspecies with its parapatric southern relatives, the Southern Grey Shrike (L. meridionalis), the Chinese Grey Shrike (L. sphenocerus) and the Loggerhead Shrike (L. ludovicianus). Within the Great Grey Shrike species itself, there are nine subspecies. Males and females are similar in plumage, pearly grey above with a black eye-mask and white underparts.
Breeding takes place generally north of 50° northern latitude in northern Europe and Asia, and in North America (where it known as the Northern Shrike) north of 55° northern latitude in Canada and Alaska. Most populations migrate south in winter to temperate regions. The Great Grey Shrike is carnivorous, with rodents making up over half its diet.
An adult Great Grey Shrike is usually around 24 to 25 cm (9.4 to 9.8 in) long - about as large as a big thrush - and weighs around 60 to 70 g (2.1 to 2.5 oz), although some subspecies are noticeably smaller or larger, and even in the nominate subspecies adult weights between 48 and 81 g (1.7 to 3 oz) are recorded. The wings are around 11.4 cm (4.5 in) and the tail around 10.9 cm (4.3 in) long in the nominate subspecies, its bill measures about 23 mm (0.9 in) from tip to skull, and the tarsometatarsus part of its "legs" (actually feet) is around 27.4 mm (1.08 in) long.
The general colour of the upperparts is pearl grey, tinged brownish towards the east of its Eurasian range. The cheeks and chin as well as a thin and often hard-to-see stripe above the eye are white, and a deep black mask extends from the beak through the eye to the ear coverts; the area immediately above the beak is grey. The scapulars (shoulder feathers) are white, and the wings are black with a white bar made up by the bases of the primary remiges, continuing slightly offset onto the bases of the secondary remiges in some regions. The tail is black, long, and pointed at the tip; the outer rectrices have white outer vanes. The underparts are white, slightly tinged with grey in most subspecies. In particular the breast is usually darker and sometimes browner than the rest of the light underside, and may appear as an indistinct band between the lighter belly and white throat. In the subspecies around the North Pacific in particular and in females elsewhere too, there may be faint brownish bars on the breast. The bill is large and hooked at the tip and coloured nearly black, but pale at the base of the under mandible (though the extent varies seasonally). The legs and feet are blackish.
Males and females are about the same size, and do not differ conspicuously in appearance except by direct comparison. In the female the underparts are greyer and are usually visibly barred greyish-brown, and the white wing and tail markings are characteristically less in extent (though this is rarely clearly visible except in flight). Fledged young birds are heavily tinged greyish-brown all over, with barring on the upperside and indistinct buffy-white markings. The tips of the tertiary remiges and the wing coverts are also buffy, with a black band in the latter. In the North American subspecies borealis, the fledglings are tinged quite brown indeed on upperside and wings, and have sharp and dark underside bars. In Eurasia, fledglings moult into a female-like plumage with the tertiary bars usually remaining in autumn. Across its range, the young acquire the adult plumage in their first spring.
The male's song consists of short pleasant warbling strophes, interspersed with fluid whistles. The individual phrases may go like tu-tu-krr-pree-pree or trr-turit trr-turit.... To announce that it has become aware of someone straying into its territory - be it a female or male of its species or a large mammal - it gives long shrill raspy whistles like trrii(u) or (t')kwiiet. To announce to females, it often mixes these whistles with a strophe of song. A softer whistle goes like trüü(t). These whistles are also used in duets between mates in winter and neighbors in the breeding season. Various contact calls have been described as chlie(p), gihrrr, kwä or wuut. These are frequently heard during courtship, interspersed with song phrases as the harsh whistles are in pre-courtship. The song becomes softer and more warbling as the male shows the female around his territory, and at potential nest sites the male gives a lively chatter containing fluting tli-tli, prrr trills and kwiw...püh calls.
When disturbed its alarm note is a harsh jay-like k(w)eee, greee or jaaa, often repeated twice. The more excited the birds become, the higher and faster the calls get, via chek-chek-chek to a rattle trr-trr-trr or an explosive aak-aak-aak. Bird of prey alert is given with a whistle breezeek. Knuk calls are given with adults confronted with a potential threat to their young. To beg for food - young to adults or pairmembers to each other - rows of waik calls are given. This species sometimes tries to attract small songbirds by mimicking their calls, so it may attempt to catch them for food.