The great grey shrike (Lanius excubitor) is a large and predatory songbird species in the shrike family (Laniidae). It forms a superspecies with its parapatric southern relatives, the Iberian grey shrike (L. meridionalis), the Chinese grey shrike (L. sphenocerus) and the American loggerhead shrike (L. ludovicianus). Males and females are similar in plumage, pearly grey above with a black eye-mask and white underparts.
Breeding takes place generally north of 50° northern latitude in northern Europe and Asia. Most populations migrate south in winter to temperate regions.Harris & Franklin (2000): pp. 152–153 The great grey shrike is carnivorous, with rodents making up over half its diet.
Taxonomy and systematics The species was first scientifically described by the Swedish physician Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 edition of Systema Naturae under the current binomial name. His description is – "a shrike with a wedge-shaped white-bordered tail, back grey, wings black with white spot". At that time, none of the other grey shrikes – including the lesser grey shrike (L. minor), for which the description of the tail pattern is incorrect and which some authors already recognised as distinct – were considered separate species by Linnaeus, but that was to change soon.
Linnaeus' binomial name replaced the cumbersome and confusing descriptive names of the earlier naturalist books he gives as his sources: in his own Fauna Svecica he named it ("light-blue waxwing, wings and tail blackish"), while it is called pica cinerea sive lanius major ("ash-grey magpie or greater shrike") by Johann Leonhard Frisch, who in his splendid colour plate confused male and female. But most authors cited by Linnaeus – Eleazar Albin, Ulisse Aldrovandi, John Ray and Francis Willughby – called it lanius cinereus major or similar, which is a near-literal equivalent of the common name "great grey shrike". The type locality of Linnaeus is simply given as Europa ("Europe").Aldrovandi (1646), Willughby (1676): p. 53, Ray (1713), Frisch (1720), Albin (1731–1738), Linnaeus (1746, 1758)
The scientific name of the great grey shrike literally means "sentinel butcher": Lanius is the Latin term for a butcher, while excubitor is Latin for a watchman or sentinel. This refers to the birds' two most conspicuous behaviours – storing food animals by impaling them on thorns, and using exposed tree-tops or poles to watch the surrounding area for possible prey. Use of the former by Conrad Gessner established the quasi-scientific term lanius for the shrikes. Linnaeus chose his specific name because the species "observes approaching hawks and announces [the presence] of songbirds"Accipitres adventantes observat & aviculis indicat: Linnaeus (1758) as he put it. This habit was also put to use in falconry, as fancifully recorded by William Yarrell later.Gessner (1555): p. 557, Linnaeus (1758), Glare (1968–1982): pp. 637, 1000, Swainson (2008): p. 47 The common English name "shrike" is from Old English scríc, "shriek", referring to the shrill call.
Vernacular names Ulisse Aldrovandi, Conrad Gessner, John Ray and Francis Willughby also reported old folk names, mainly from Germanic languages: Wereangel or Wierangel from the Pennines of England (where the bird was noted as a vagrant) as well as Warkangel, Werkengel or Wurchangel in various German dialects (e.g. around Frankfurt and Strasbourg) probably mean "choking angel" (cf. Standard German Würgeengel). These names are unlikely to significantly pre-date the times of Saint Boniface (c. 700 AD) because of their Christian connotation; the related Werkenvogel ("choking bird") might, however, do so. The English version, having become wariangle or weirangle, was eventually transferred to the native red-backed shrike (L. collurio) and lingered on into modern times in Yorkshire. Along the upper Rhine, between Strasbourg and Heidelberg for example, Linkenom is attested; its origin is unclear. Low German Neghen-doer and Middle German Nünmörder were also used; this has today evolved into Neuntöter and specifically means the red-backed shrike, but could in earlier times refer to any native Lanius. It literally means "killer of nine [prey animals]" and refers to the food caches.
A falconer's name for the great grey shrike was mattages(s)(e), which is related to mat'agasse from the western Alps. These terms may mean "magpie killer", due to their use for luring carnivorous birds to hunters – but perhaps more likely "killer magpie", considering that the bird was believed to be a peculiar sort of magpie by Johann Leonhard Frisch and others, and that another vernacular English name was "murdering pie". Shrike, meanwhile, is of Germanic origin also and dates back at least to Middle or Early Modern English . This is related to such words as Norwegian and Swedish ("shriek, skrike"), German ("scream") or Icelandic ("shrieker"). But it seems to have become the dominant term only in rather recent times, for as late as the 18th century, the species was still widely known as "greater butcher-bird" in English, just like it was known as the ("butcher") in the French Jura. In Norway a vernacular name for the bird is . A whimsical name – presumably from Scotland or nearby England – was "white wisky John" in reference to its wavy and somewhat unelegant flight, during which its large areas of light plumage are conspicuous.Gessner (1555): p. 557, Aldrovandi (1646), Willughby (1676): pp. 52–53, Ray (1713), Swainson (2008): p. 47
The "grey shrike" is also sometimes named "gray shrike."For instance: at ebird.org and birdsoftheworld.org (accessed 2022-05-05).
Relationships and evolution The shrike family (Laniidae) is a member of the Corvoidea, the most ancient of the four large songbird superfamilies. Among its superfamily, the closest relatives of the Laniidae are probably the Corvidae (crows and allies). Little reliable data exists on its evolution; certainly (even though the supposed ancestral shrike "Lanius" miocaenus might not belong in the Laniidae, and probably does not belong in the same genus as L. excubitor) the genus dates back to Miocene times. A Lanius fossil from the Late Miocene Turolian age, c. 6 million years ago, has been found at Polgárdi, Hungary. Its relationship to the modern species is unclear. However, all things considered, the grey shrike lineage probably represents the Holarctic sister to the African radiation of fiscal shrikes. These two seem to have originated in a west- or southwestward expansion from the genus' origin, which (considering the biogeography of living Lanius lineages) was probably somewhere between Asia Minor and central Asia. At the time of the Polgárdi fossil, it is rather likely that the grey shrikes were a distinct lineage already; given that they and the fiscals generally follow Bergmann's Rule, the smallish fossil makes an unlikely ancestor to the large grey shrikes even when taking into account the somewhat warmer Miocene climate.Harris & Franklin (2000): pp. 24–25, Mlíkovský (2003): pp. 233, 251, Jønsson & Fjeldså (2006)
The grey shrike superspecies consists of L. excubitor and its parapatric southern relatives. As mentioned above, the other members of this group are the Iberian grey shrike (L. meridionalis), the steppe grey shrike (L. pallidirostris), the Chinese grey shrike (L. sphenocerus) and the loggerhead shrike (L. ludovicianus). The centre of this group's radiation is probably in the eastern Mediterranean region, and the southern grey shrike represents the basalmost form. The other three only diverged during the expansion into temperate regions. This must have happened fairly recently, because lineage sorting is not complete in the grey shrikes, and most of the present-day habitat of L. excubitor was uninhabitable during much of the Quaternary glaciation. Because of the phylogenetic uncertainties surrounding this close-knit group in the absence of a good fossil record, some refrain from splitting them up into distinct species; most modern authors do so however.Harris & Franklin (2000): pp. 24–25, Sangster et al. (2002)
Subspecies
There are a number of subspecies:
Lanius excubitor excubitor (including melanopterus – which may intergrade with sibiricus – and galliae) – breeds in temperate to subarctic continental Europe and northwest Siberia Medium grey above, pale grey hue below; some white on primaries and sometimes secondaries Lanius excubitor homeyeri – breeds in southeast Europe and southwest Siberia Lighter grey than excubitor above, dull white below; more white on primaries and secondaries Lanius excubitor koenigi – endemic to the Canary Islands Lanius excubitor algeriensis – coastal northwestern Africa Lanius excubitor elegans – Eastern Morocco, northeastern Mauritania and northwestern Mali to northeastern Sudan, Egypt and southwestern Israel Lanius excubitor leucopygos – central and southern Mauritania to southern Chad and central Sudan Lanius excubitor aucheri – east-central Sudan to northwestern Somalia northwest to Iraq and Iran Lanius excubitor theresae – southern Lebanon and northern Israel Lanius excubitor buryi – endemic to Yemen Lanius excubitor uncinatus – endemic to Socotra Lanius excubitor lahtora – Pakistan through central India and southern Nepal to western Bangladesh Lanius excubitor pallidirostris (Steppe grey shrike) – Central Asia and parts of northern China, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan
Description An adult great grey shrike is a medium-sized passerine about as large as a big thrush, measuring from long. It typically weighs around , although some subspecies are noticeably smaller or larger, and even in the nominate subspecies adult weights between are recorded. The wings are around and the tail around long in the nominate subspecies, its bill measures about from tip to skull, and the tarsometatarsus part of its "legs" (actually feet) is around long.Harris & Franklin (2000): pp. 150, 155 Wingspan can range from .
The general colour of the upperparts is pearl grey, tinged brownish towards the east of its Eurasian range. The cheeks and chin as well as a thin and often hard-to-see stripe above the eye are white, and a deep black mask extends from the beak through the eye to the ear coverts; the area immediately above the beak is grey. The scapulars (shoulder feathers) are white, and the wings are black with a white bar made up by the bases of the primary remiges, continuing slightly offset onto the bases of the secondary remiges in some regions. The tail is black, long, and pointed at the tip; the outer rectrices have white outer vanes. The underparts are white, slightly tinged with grey in most subspecies. In particular the breast is usually darker and sometimes browner than the rest of the light underside, and may appear as an indistinct band between the lighter belly and white throat. In the subspecies around the North Pacific in particular and in females elsewhere too, there may be faint brownish bars on the breast. The bill is large and hooked at the tip and coloured nearly black, but pale at the base of the under mandible (though the extent varies seasonally). The legs and feet are blackish.Harris & Franklin (2000): pp. 60–61, 150–151