Brown Shrike

The brown shrike is mainly brown above with a rounded tail, and has the black bandit mask of most shrikes, topped by a white eyebrow; the mask can be paler in winter. The underparts are creamy with rufous flanks and belly, and the brown wings have no white patch. Females tend to show fine scalloping below and a less well-marked dark brown mask. One subspecies has a grey crown and a more rufous rump. It is closely related to the red-backed and isabelline shrikes (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives mainly in open scrub, perching on the tops of thorny bushes as it watches for prey. Several distinct subspecies breed in temperate Asia and migrate to spend the winter in tropical Asia, and strays turn up in Europe and North America. The word shrike comes from an Old English word for shriek, and the genus name means butcher (Wikipedia, general species account).