Shrikes, Bushshrikes and Kin

 Family Laniidae - Shrikes

Shrikes are passerine birds of the family Laniidae. The family is composed of 34 species in two genera.

The family name, and that of the largest genus, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes are also known as butcherbirds because of the habit, particularly of males, of impaling prey onto plant spines within their territories. These larders have multiple functions, attracting females and serving as food stores.

The common English name shrike is from Old English scrīc, alluding to the shrike's shriek-like call.

Male shrikes are known for their habit of catching insects and small vertebrates and impaling them on thorns, branches, the spikes on barbed-wire fences, or any available sharp point. These stores serve as a cache so that the shrike can return to the uneaten portions at a later time. The primary function of conspicuously impaling prey on thorny vegetation is however thought to be for males to display their fitness and the quality of the territory held to prospective mates. The impaling behavior increases during the onset of the breeding season. Female shrikes have been known to impale prey, but primarily to assist in dismembering prey. This behaviour may also serve secondarily as an adaptation to eating the toxic lubber grasshopper, Romalea microptera. The bird waits 1–2 days for the toxins within the grasshopper to degrade before eating it.

Loggerhead shrikes kill vertebrates by using their beaks to grab or pierce the neck and violently shake their prey.

Shrikes are territorial, and these territories are defended from other pairs. In migratory species, a breeding territory is defended in the breeding grounds and a smaller feeding territory is established during migration and in the wintering grounds. Where several species of shrikes exist together, competition for territories can be intense.

Shrikes make regular use of exposed perch sites, where they adopt a conspicuous upright stance. These sites are used to watch for prey and to advertise their presence to rivals.

Shrikes vocally imitate their prey to lure them for capture.

 Family Malaconotidae - Bushshrikes, Boubous

The bushshrikes are smallish passerine birds. They were formerly classed with the true shrikes in the family Laniidae, but are now considered sufficiently distinctive to be separated from that group as the family Malaconotidae, a name that alludes to their fluffy back and rump feathers.

Like their shrike-like relatives, the helmetshrikes, the bushshrikes have arisen in Africa in relatively recent times. The family is endemic to sub-Saharan Africa but completely absent from Madagascar, where the vangas are their closest relatives. They are found in scrub or open woodland, and less often in marshes, Afromontane or tropical forest. They are similar in habits to shrikes, hunting insects and other small prey from a perch on a bush. Although similar in build to the shrikes, these tend to be either colourful species or largely black; some species are quite secretive.

Some bushshrikes have flamboyant displays. The male puffbacks puff out the loose feathers on their rump and lower back, to look almost ball-like.

These are mainly insectivorous forest or scrub birds. Up to four eggs are laid in a cup nest in a tree.