Brown Shrike - Lanius cristatus

Common Name :	Brown Shrike.
Binomial Name :	Lanius cristatus
Family :	Laniidae
Bengali Name :	Badami Koshai (বাদামী কসাই), Kajol Pakhi (কাজল পাখি).
Photo Taken :	Bangladesh

Our today's bird is a small but beautiful one, specially for the black bandit-mask around the eyes. Its name is Brown Shrike. A migratory bird in Bangladesh. They live in the part of Asia's Mongolia to Siberia (when there is summer) and come to South Asian region during their winter (that is mild winter compare to Siberian) along with East Asian region. In Bangladesh we have several names for this bird, for example Badami Koshai, Kajol Pakhi, Khoyra Latora, etc. Lanius cristatus is its binomial name and it belongs to the shrike family Laniidae.

Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus) is a small bird having length of 19 centimeter around. The back side of the bird is brown and front side is white (brownish white) in color with few black spots. The tail is rounded at the end and blackish brown in color. The bird has a thick black stripe (bandit-masks) around the eyes which makes it more beautiful. Similar to other shrikes, it has a hooked beak.

Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus) is a cute little bird, but it's feeding behavior is not a pleasant one. Like other shrike birds they also use to impale the prey on the thorns. And they scratch the prey on the thorns to slice them for easy feeding. They mainly hunt on the small to large insects along with some lizards. They mostly fly downwards from the perch to catch the prey. They are mainly seen the bushy area, and sometimes around wetlands.

They are found throughout the winter in Bangladesh. After that they return back to their summer home. From the bird ring reading it is found that they use to trust the same location over and over. In Bangladesh they use to come during August/September and return back during April.

Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus) uses to keep its beak closed while singing and only the throat is pulsating. Also its tail use to move up and down during the singing.

Photos of Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus) were taken from the following locations as below:
1) November 2014: Atkandi, Norshingdi.
2) December 2015: Keraniganj, Dhaka.



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