What is brown shrike?
Red-tailed shrike (scientific name: Lanius cristatus): It is a bird of the genus Shrike, commonly known as brown shrike. Body length 18-21 cm. The upper body is tan or gray-brown, the wings are dark-brown, the top of the head is gray or reddish-brown, with white eyebrow lines and thick black eye lines. The tail coverts are reddish brown, the tail feathers are tan, and the tail is wedge-shaped. The chin and throat are white, and the rest of the underparts are brownish-white.
Forest birds generally live in warm wetlands, common in plains, hills to low mountains, and mostly nest near forest margins and open areas. The food they eat mainly includes Orthoptera, Katydidae, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Beetleidae, Scarabidae, Coccinellidae, Hemiptera and Lepidoptera. Eat a small amount of grass occasionally. It is distributed in Western Siberia, from the Irtysh River and Altai eastward to the Anadyr Basin and Kamchatka Peninsula, North Korea, Mongolia, Japan, and also in India, Indochina, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia in winter.
What does a brown shrike look like?
Red-tailed shrike common subspecies forehead and front of the head light gray (nominated subspecies forehead and head reddish brown), the head to the nape of the neck grayish brown. The upper back and shoulders are dark taupe (the named subspecies tan), and the lower back and waist are tan. The tail coverts are brownish red, and the tail feathers are brown with faintly visible dark brown horizontal spots. The two wings are dark brown, the inner coverts are dark gray-brown, the outer coverts are dark brown, the middle coverts, the large coverts and the inner flight feathers have a brown-white feather edge and apex. The wing margins are white, and the front of the eyes, around the eyes to the ears are black, and they are connected into a thick black eye pattern from the base of the mouth through the eyes to the back of the ears. There is a narrow white eyebrow line above the eyes and above the ear feathers. The chin, throat and cheeks are white, the rest of the underparts are brownish-white, the flanks are more brown, and the axillary feathers are also brownish-white.
brown shrike living habits
migration
The Northeast Asian species of red-tailed shrike breeds in Heilongjiang, China, and migrates through eastern China; the named subspecies is a winter migratory bird, which migrates through most of eastern China; the Japanese subspecies migrates south to Yunnan, South China and Hainan Island for winter.
habit
Alone or in pairs, lively, often jumping or flying up and down the branches. Sometimes it also stands tall on the top of a small tree or on a wire and watches the surroundings quietly. When the prey appears, it suddenly flies to hunt, and then flies back to the original perch to perch. Often rests in relatively fixed habitats (twigs, wires) and looks around to hunt small animals and insects on the surface. The bark of this thicker branch of the hunting site is stripped and the bark fibres are used to build the nest. During the breeding period, it often stands on the top of the small tree and sings loudly. Fall into the branches and continue to sing, and immediately fly down into the dense foliage or thickets after seeing people.
feeding habits
Red-tailed shrike mainly feeds on animal food such as insects. The food they eat mainly includes Orthoptera, Katydidae, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Beetleidae, Scarabidae, Coccinellidae, Hemiptera and Lepidoptera. Eat a small amount of grass occasionally. Insects accounted for 99.6%, with the largest number of coleoptera, including scarabs, ditch beetles, pseudo-walking insects, weevil beetles, etc.; followed by Lepidoptera noctuidae and hornworms larvae, mainly mole crickets, negative locusts, mantises, etc. This bird likes to eat mole crickets, locusts, and cutworms. It also catches lizards, hangs them on the sharp branches of trees, and then rips off soft parts such as internal organs and muscles, and hangs the rest on the tree without looking back. Young birds have the instinct to hook food (meat strips) on the spikes in the cage, instead of storing it.
brown shrike rearing
Red-tailed shrike likes to eat meat and occasionally fresh grass. It is not very noisy and is very suitable for pet birds. Of course, a healthy bird’s reasonable diet is the most basic, so the ideal ingredients for red-tailed shrike are what?
The red-tailed shrike mainly eats insects and other animal foods. The food they eat mainly includes Orthoptera, Katydidae, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Beetleidae, Scarabidae, Coccinellidae, Hemiptera and Lepidoptera. Eat a small amount of grass occasionally. Insects accounted for 99.6%, with the largest number of coleoptera, including scarabs, ditch beetles, pseudo-walking insects, weevil beetles, etc.; followed by Lepidoptera noctuidae and hornworms larvae, mainly mole crickets, negative locusts, mantises, etc. This bird likes to eat mole crickets, locusts, and cutworms. It also catches lizards, hangs them on the sharp branches of trees, and then rips off soft parts such as internal organs and muscles, and hangs the rest on the tree without looking back. Young birds have the instinct to hook food (meat strips) on the spikes in the cage, rather than store them
The food of red-tailed shrike can also be fed to young birds with red-spotted feed (ie mung bean flour, corn flour, cooked egg yolk, freshwater fish meal or silkworm chrysalis powder in a ratio of 5:2:2:1), but the growth is not very good. If supplemented with fresh fat-free beef and mutton, it can improve quickly. In addition, the feed noodles (bean noodles, corn noodles) should be as thin as possible, because the coarse dregs will be kneaded into a ball in the shrike’s stomach and spit out, which has the effect of “scraping oil”, making the bird gradually lose weight. Because shrike has no ability to digest cellulose, it is best to have fresh meat in the feed.
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