Christopher Taylor Bird Nature Wildlife Mammal Photography
bird photography
GALLERIES > BIRDS > CORVOIDAE > LANIIDAE > YELLOW-BILLED SHRIKE [Corvinella corvina]


Yellow-billed Shrike Picture
 
 

bird photography

SPECIES INFO

The Yellow-billed Shrike (Corvinella corvina) is a small passerine bird in the shrike family. It is sometimes known as Long-tailed Shrike but this is to be discouraged since it invites confusion with the Long-tailed Shrike, Lanius schach, of tropical southern Asia.

The Yellow-billed Shrike is a common resident breeding bird in tropical Africa from Senegal east to Uganda and locally in westernmost Kenya. It frequents forest and other habitats with trees.

The nest is a cup structure in a bush or tree into which four or five eggs are laid. Only one female in a group breeds at a given time, with other members providing protection and food.

The Yellow-billed Shrike is 18cm long with a long tail and short wings. The adult has mottled brown upperparts and streaked buff underparts. There is a brown eye mask and a rufous wing patch, and the bill is yellow. Sexes are similar, but immatures show buff fringes to the wing feathers.

This is a conspicuous and gregarious bird, always seen in groups, often lined up on telephone wires. It is noisy, with harsh swee-swee and dreee-too calls.

The Yellow-billed Shrike feeds on insects which it locates from prominent look-out perches in trees, wires or posts.





HOME · ABOUT ME · GALLERY · STOCKLIST · VIDEO · SEARCH · PRESS · CONTACT · BLOG · NEW STUFF
nature photography
All images and video © Copyright 2006-2024 Christopher Taylor, Content and maps by their respective owner. All rights reserved.
bird photography