Shrike flayer

The shrike flayer is a Passereau of the family of the Laniidae .

Description

The shrike flayer has a slightly hooked nozzle. The male with the head and the tail gray, a broad black ocular stringcourse, a russet-red maroon back, wings brown chestnut, a white chin and a chest dew.

It holds its name of its technique of hunting. It hangs its preys on the spines of the bushes to be made reserves of food.

Distribution and habitat

The shrike flayer is quite widespread in all the Western Eurasia.

In France, the species is present in all the great cattle-rearing areas, except the Brittany and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. It also avoids the strictly Mediterranean zone because it is rather a species of the moderate climates.

The habitat of the shrike flayer is characterized by open mediums of cultivated countryside (meadows of mowing, grazing grounds, slopes enherbés…) strewn with hedges or thickets, specific zones of thorny bushes or undergrowth. It occupies in particular the sloe, the hawthorn and bramble.

Food mode

The shrike flayer drives out with the mounting starting from perches. It accomplishes sometimes a hovering to locate and capture its preys. Its food is made up mainly of insects but it captures also micromammifères (Campagnol S, Musaraigne S) of the Grenouille S, Lézard S and young sparrows.

The shrike flayer drives out with the mounting starting from perches generally located between 1 and 3 meters above the ground (posts, wire, died branches, stakes of fence). In their very great majority, the preys are captured on the ground. However, per good weather, the species can continue insects in vol.

This shrike impales its preys regularly, from where the name d'" flayer ". It seems however that this practice is primarily the fact of birds living in moderate medium because this behavior aims at constituting supposed stocks of food to balance the abundance of the preys and thus captures according to the weather conditions.

Reproduction

The nest is built in a thick and thorny bush.

Migration

The shrike flayer is a migrating species Trans-Saharan. It arrives at the beginning of May and turns over in Africa enters at the end of August and mid-September.

State of the populations

The species is rather common but in strong regression at the national level and in practically all rare and very localized Europe becoming with the manpower subjected to strong year fluctuations by year. The European population is estimated at approximately 3 to 5 million couples.

In France: 160000 with: 360000 couples would reproduce. The species is in strong regression at the national level and in practically all Europe.

See too

Taxonomic references

External bonds

Sources, notes and references

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