Red-backed shrike

Description

With a length of 16-18 cm, the red-backed shrike is the smallest Central European shrike species. Males and females differ clearly in colouration.

The wing length averages 93 (91-95) mm, in the male it is between 88 and 100 mm, in the female between 82 and 98 mm. The length of the tail is between 71 and 90 mm in the male, and between 68 and 85 mm in the female. The average weight of the male is about 28 grams. In females it can increase to 32.8 grams during the breeding season and is about 28.5 grams outside the breeding season. Before migration, fat deposits can be formed and the weight increased to a maximum of 37 grams. However, this does not seem to be the rule.

Male

The male has a rusty brown to chestnut brown back and shoulder plumage, as indicated by the name " red-backed shrike". The top of the head and the nape of the neck stand out clearly with their light blue-grey. Like other Lanius species, red-backed shrikes have a narrow, black facial mask in which the dark eye, seen from a distance, often disappears almost completely. The mask is sometimes bordered from the grey top of the head by an indistinct, blurred white supercilium, which is often slightly more pronounced behind the eye. The wing coverts are reddish brown with distinctly lighter and redder margins; the primaries are chestnut brown with lighter margins and the seccondaries unmargined dark brown. In rare cases there is a white patch. This is formed by a more or less pronounced white pattern at the base of the primaries The rump is - partly up to the lower back - grey. The tail shows a contrasting black and white, spoon-shaped pattern: the middle tail feathers are mostly black, followed by feathers with a lot of white in the upper area, which increases towards the outer tail feathers. The control feathers are narrowly white fringed at the tips. The underparts are mostly whitish to cream, often the flanks and breast are slightly tinged with salmon to pink.

Female

In contrast to the male, the female does not have a grey upper head. The female's entire upperparts are a solid reddish brown, usually slightly less vivid than the male. The facial mask is more indistinct, usually dark brown to blackish, the eye stands out more clearly from it. The light supercilium is more prominent. The tail is mostly brown with white edges. The underparts are cream to beige in colour and show dark scales on the chest and flanks, some only hinting at them and some with strong scales ("sparrowhawk"). This is sometimes also very pale on the back. With age, the scales may fade, and the female's colouring becomes more and more similar to that of the male.

The red-backed shrike inhabits well-managed, sunny terrain with open areas of low or sparse vegetation (e.g. shrubberies, meadows, dry grasslands) alternating with scattered hedgerows or copses with less than 50 percent cover. It needs one to three metre high shrubs as roosts for hunting and territorial observation and as nest sites. Briars such as sloes, hawthorns or hedge roses are preferred, but they do not have to be present in large numbers under otherwise favourable conditions.

Accordingly, the red-backed shrike likes to colonise grassland and pastureland rich in hedges, wet fallows, partially drained moors with dam cultures, orchards as well as clearings, windthrow and clear-cut areas or young plantations within forests. In natural regions, forest edges or clearings, especially moist sites, e.g. fringes of alder swamps or willow forests, are of particular importance.

These habitat requirements are predestined for the red-backed shrike in extensively used cultural landscapes - i.e. small-scale habitats divided by hedges and copses and characterised by extensive pasture farming.

Today, the red-backed shrike can often only be found in suitable marginal areas of the cultivated landscape, for example on fallow, scrubby areas, on clear-cut areas and young plantations, even within closed forests, at landfills, gravel pits or motorway embankments and railway embankments.

The text is a translation of an excerpt from Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuntöter). On wikipedia the text is available under a „Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike“ licence. Status: 01 December 2021