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Red-backed Shrike

Distribution of Red-backed shrike
Names, conservation status and distribution
red-backed shrike, Lanius collurio, pie-grièche écorcheur, alcuadon dorsirrojo, birds of kenya, wildlife of kenya
Tsavo West National Park
red-backed shrike, Lanius collurio, pie-grièche écorcheur, alcuadon dorsirrojo, birds of kenya, wildlife of kenya
Tsavo West National Park

red-backed shrike, Lanius collurio, pie-grièche écorcheur, alcuadon dorsirrojo, birds of kenya, wildlife of kenya
Tsavo West National Park
red-backed shrike, Lanius collurio, pie-grièche écorcheur, alcuadon dorsirrojo, birds of kenya, wildlife of kenya
Tsavo West National Park
red-backed shrike, Lanius collurio, pie-grièche écorcheur, alcuadon dorsirrojo, birds of kenya, wildlife of kenya
Nairobi National Park
red-backed shrike, Lanius collurio, pie-grièche écorcheur, alcuadon dorsirrojo, birds of kenya, wildlife of kenya
Tsavo West National Park
red-backed shrike, Lanius collurio, pie-grièche écorcheur, alcuadon dorsirrojo, birds of kenya, wildlife of kenya
Tsavo West National Park

This 16 – 18 centimetres long migratory passerine eats large insects, small birds, voles and lizards. Like other shrikes the Red-backed Shrike hunts from prominent perches and impales corpses on thorns or barbed wire as a ‘larder'. It breeds in most of Europe and western Asia and winters in tropical Africa.In kenya from November or December to April. A few (mainly kobylini) winter in greener parts of south east Kenya and north East tanzania.

The Red-backed Shrikes range is decreasing and it is now probably extinct in Great Britain as a breeding bird, although it is frequent on migration.It is named as a protected bird in Britain under a Biodiversity Action Plan. The Red-backed Shrikes’ decline is due to overuse of pesticides and scrub clearance due to human overpopulation.