Bird watching in Thailand: The brown shrike (Lanius cristatus)
A nice bird that you regularly encounter in Thailand is the brown shrike (Lanius cristatus). It is a passerine bird of the shrike family. The scientific name of the species was published in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus. The species breeds in much of Asia, and winters in the Oriental region.
The bird is closely related to the red-backed shrike (L. collurio) and the Daurian shrike (L. isabellinus) and was formerly considered a subspecies of the former. In Thailand you can see the brown shrike mainly in the dry season, as it is spotted on poles, twigs and wires in open country (it can also be a subspecies). Like most other shrikes, this bird species feeds on large insects and small lizards, sometimes impaling them on thorns before the bird eats them. The brown shrike also eats small bird.
The brown shrike is on average 20 cm long. The bird is mostly brown above and it has a rounded tail. The animal has a black "mask" around the eye and above it a light eyebrow stripe. The belly and breast are cream, but the flanks are more reddish brown. The female is more pale in color and has fish scale plumage on the chest and the mask is dark brown instead of black.
The brown shrike is also a vagrant in Europe. It has been observed in the British Isles and also in Italy, Norway, Denmark, France and Germany. On January 18, 2014, a brown shrike was spotted in Veldhunten in the Achterhoek; this is the first confirmed sighting in the Netherlands. On October 25, 2019, the first confirmed sighting came in Belgium, more precisely in Heist.
