Woodchat Shrike
Lanius senator
- KingdomAnimalia (Animals)
- PhylumChordata (Chordates)
- ClassAves (Birds)
- OrderPasseriformes (Perching Birds)
- FamilyLaniidae (Shrikes)
- GenusLanius (Typical Shrikes)
- SpeciesLanius senator (Woodchat Shrike)
About the Woodchat Shrike
The woodchat shrike (Lanius senator) is a member of the shrike family Laniidae. It can be identified by its red-brown crown and nape. It is mainly insectivorous and favours open wooded areas with scattered trees such as orchards, particularly when there is bare or sandy ground. The woodchat shrike breeds in southern Europe, the Middle East and northwest Africa, and winters in tropical Africa.
The woodchat shrike was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Lanius senator. Linnaeus based his description on the "red headed butcher-bird" that had been described and illustrated in 1734 by the English naturalist Eleazar Albin in the second volume of his A Natural History of Birds. Linnaeus mistakenly specified the type locality as "Indiis". This was corrected to the River Rhine in Germany by Ernst Hartert in 1907. The genus name, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes are also known as "butcher birds" because of their feeding habits. The specific senator is Latin for "senator", so-named because its chestnut cap recalled the colour of the stripe on the... Wikipedia →
Closest Relatives at Plitvice Lakes National Park
Red-backed Shrike
Lanius collurio
Lesser Grey Shrike
Lanius minor
Chaffinch
Fringilla coelebs
Great Tit
Parus major
Eurasian Blackbird
Turdus merula
European Robin
Erithacus rubecula
Eurasian Nuthatch
Sitta europaea
Marsh Tit
Poecile palustris
Blackcap
Sylvia atricapilla
Common Chiffchaff
Phylloscopus collybita
Song Thrush
Turdus philomelos
Grey Wagtail
Motacilla cinerea
Global Distribution
Where this species is recorded worldwide. Restricted to human observations from 2019 onwards — the same kind of record and the same period the probabilities on this page are built from, so collar-tracking studies, camera-trap arrays and museum specimens are excluded. Around Santa Rosa that removes 5,924 GPS fixes from a handful of tagged jaguars.
where this species is recorded (GBIF density — it tracks where observers go, not how likely a sighting is) · parks where it occurs — tap a pin for the sighting probability there
Parks Where Found
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Monfragüe National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 2 | Awash National Park | 🇪🇹 Ethiopia | |
| 3 | Doñana National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 4 | Sierra de Guadarrama National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 5 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 6 | Sierra Nevada National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 7 | Murchison Falls National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 8 | Niokolo-Koba National Park | 🇸🇳 Senegal | |
| 9 | Pyrénées National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 10 | Cévennes National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 11 | Camargue | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 12 | Plitvice Lakes National Park | 🇭🇷 Croatia | |
| 13 | Mercantour National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 14 | Fertő-Hanság National Park | 🇭🇺 Hungary | |
| 15 | Kiskunság National Park | 🇭🇺 Hungary | |
| 16 | Wadden Sea National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany |