Lagden's Bushshrike

About the Lagden's Bushshrike

Lagden's bushshrike (Malaconotus lagdeni) is a bird species in the bushshrike family (Malaconotidae) native to Africa. It is a stocky bird with yellow or orange-yellow underparts, olive green upperparts, a grey head and heavy bill. Two subspecies are recognised.

Richard Bowdler Sharpe described the species in 1884 as Laniarius lagdeni, from a specimen collected in the vicinity of Kumasi in Ghana. However there were no further sightings of the species in this locale for the whole 20th century. He named it in honour of Sir Godfrey Yeatman Lagden, an English diplomat who served as Chief Clerk to the Secretary of the State of Transvaal and Secretary to Sir Owen Lanyon.

There are two disjunct populations, classified as separate subspecies: Malaconotus lagdeni lagdeni, from eastern Sierra Leone, through Liberia, Ivory Coast and southern Ghana to western Togo, and Malaconotus lagdeni centralis, in the Albertine Rift montane forests. The western subspecies has more orange tinge on the underparts while the central African subspecies has none.

Lagden's bushshrike is a stocky bird some 23 cm long with a heavy black bill. The adult male and female are similar... Wikipedia →