Long Tailed Shrike - Lanius schach

Common Name :	Long-tailed Shrike, Rufous-backed Shrike.
Binomial Name :	Lanius schach
Family :	Laniidae
Bengali Name :	Kalo Matha Koshai (কালো মাথা কসাই).
Photo Taken :	Bangladesh

Long tailed shrike is one of my favorite birds during my childhood. I liked this bird for its lovely color and it was always available where we have lived. It is a native bird from South Asia. It has several Bengali names such as Kalo Matha Koshai, Lenja Latora, Baghatiki, etc. Its binomial name is Lanius schach and it belongs to the family Laniidae.

Though Long Tailed Shrike (Lanius schach) looks a bit larger having a long tail, but actually it's a small bird. It has a black mask at the eyes and also its head is covered with total black. The breast is white in color and having a touch of white at some portion of the neck. The tail is usual long and the back side of the bird is rufous in color. The wings are having a touch of black (or should I say it has some black feather in wings?). It has a sharp hooked beak similar to other shrike birds.

Long Tailed Shrike (Lanius schach) is known as shrike because of its feeding behavior. It mostly hunts the small lizards, insects, etc. After the hunting it uses to impale the prey into the thorns of the tree. Also sometimes they use to scratch the prey on the thorns so that it gets sliced into small pieces. Basically these are the reasons to call this as a butcher bird.

Long Tailed Shrike (Lanius schach) uses to maintain its territory and you'll not see two birds in the same territory. This bird mostly perch on the small trees or atop of bushes beside the cultivation fields. During my childhood I have seen a nest of this bird that was build on a tree above the 6/7 feet height from ground. This bird is sometimes parasitized by the Cuckoo birds.

A closer look to the back of a Long Tailed Shrike (Lanius schach).

A Long Tailed Shrike (Lanius schach) perched on an electric wire.

Photos of Long Tailed Shrike (Lanius schach) were taken from the following locations of Bangladesh:
1. November 2014: Nagorpur, Tangail.
2. December 2014: Keraniganj, Dhaka.
3. February 2015: Rupganj, Dhaka.
4. March 2015: Uttara, Dhaka.


This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icbird.blogspot.com/