Shrikes are songbirds that butcher prey on thorns
Shrikes are passerines of family Laniidae—thirty-four species in four genera. Lanius and the family name come from Latin for butcher; some are called butcherbirds because males especially impale prey on thorns, branches or the barbs of wire fences.
English shrike traces to Old English scric for their shrieking call. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque introduced the family (as Lanidia) in 1815; Linnaeus had named Lanius in 1758.
The white-crowned shrikes of Eurocephalus remain in the family for now, though a 2023 molecular study found them closer to crows and proposed a family of their own. Most species live across Eurasia and Africa; only the loggerhead and northern shrikes breed in North America, none occur in South America or Australia, and one reaches New Guinea. They favour open steppe and savannah, a few keep to forest, and some northern breeders migrate south for winter.
Most measure 16 to 30 centimetres, from Emin's shrike at 14 to 16 to the long-tailed magpie shrike at up to 50, dressed in grey, brown or black and white, with hooked beaks like a raptor's. Loggerhead shrikes dispatch vertebrates by seizing or piercing the neck and shaking hard. From exposed lookout perches they scan for prey and warn off rivals, and they even mimic their victims' calls; in 1575 the poet George Turberville described one feigning distress to lure birds within reach.
The spiked larders chiefly advertise a male's fitness and the quality of his territory, though they also store food for later, and males court females with well-stocked caches that can include bright inedible objects. Most pairs are monogamous, and cooperative breeding, with young birds helping their parents, occurs in Eurocephalus, Corvinella and one Lanius species.
Source: Shrike
