Lanius minor
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5%
The lesser grey shrike (Lanius minor) is a passerine bird in the shrike family Laniidae. It breeds in South and Central Europe and western Asia and migrates to winter quarters in southern Africa in the early autumn, returning in spring. It is a scarce vagrant to western Europe, including Great Britain, usually as a spring or autumn erratic.
It is similar in appearance to the great grey shrike (Lanius excubitor) and the Iberian grey shrike (Lanius meridionalis); both sexes are predominantly black, white and grey, and males have pink-flushed underparts. It is slightly smaller than the great grey shrike, and has a black forehead and relatively longer wings. This species prefers dry open lowlands and is often seen on telephone wires.
This medium-sized passerine eats large insects, especially beetles, butterflies, moths and grasshoppers. Lesser grey shrikes frequently hover when hunting on their breeding grounds, but do not do so while moulting on non-breeding grounds. Like other shrikes, it hunts from prominent perches and sometimes impales corpses on thorns or barbed wire as a "larder".
The lesser grey shrike was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann... Wikipedia →
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aquarium Barcelona | 🇪🇸 Spain |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Lesser Grey Shrike sighting in Nairobi on a given day, based on 5 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 224th most-seen of the 234 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Lesser Grey Shrike in Nairobi on a given day, against under 5% in May to March, the lowest months. That is one of Nairobi's wettest months, with about 150 mm of rain against 25 mm in July.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Lesser Grey Shrike sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
13th of 14
Of the 14 cities where we can rate Lesser Grey Shrike sightings, Nairobi ranks 13th at under 5%. The best odds are in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia, about 10%), Manama (Bahrain, under 5%) and Kuwait City (Kuwait, under 5%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Lesser Grey Shrike is recorded against all the birds logged in Nairobi (5 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
