Lanius senator
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~70% in a week >90%
The woodchat shrike (Lanius senator) is a member of the shrike family Laniidae. It can be identified by its red-brown crown and nape. It is mainly insectivorous and favours open wooded areas with scattered trees such as orchards, particularly when there is bare or sandy ground. The woodchat shrike breeds in southern Europe, the Middle East and northwest Africa, and winters in tropical Africa.
The woodchat shrike was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Lanius senator. Linnaeus based his description on the "red headed butcher-bird" that had been described and illustrated in 1734 by the English naturalist Eleazar Albin in the second volume of his A Natural History of Birds. Linnaeus mistakenly specified the type locality as "Indiis". This was corrected to the River Rhine in Germany by Ernst Hartert in 1907. The genus name, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes are also known as "butcher birds" because of their feeding habits. The specific senator is Latin for "senator", so-named because its chestnut cap recalled the colour of the stripe on the...
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary | 🇸🇳 Senegal | |
| 2 | Monfragüe National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 3 | Awash National Park | 🇪🇹 Ethiopia | |
| 4 | Doñana National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 5 | Sierra de Guadarrama National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 6 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 7 | Sierra Nevada National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 8 | Corsica Regional Natural Park (Parc naturel régional de Corse) | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 9 | Mole National Park | 🇬🇭 Ghana | |
| 10 | Murchison Falls National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 11 | Niokolo-Koba National Park | 🇸🇳 Senegal | |
| 12 | Cévennes National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 13 | Camargue | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 14 | Pyrénées National Park | 🇫🇷 France |
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Woodchat Shrike sighting in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary on a given day, based on 56 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 74th most-seen of the 173 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 70%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February
In that month about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Woodchat Shrike in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary on a given day, against about 20% in November, the lowest month. That is one of Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary's driest months, with almost no rain against 55 mm in August. May to October have too few records to rate.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Woodchat Shrike sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Yes
Of the 14 parks where we can rate Woodchat Shrike sightings, Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary has the highest daily chance: about 40%. Next come Monfragüe National Park (Spain, about 20%) and Awash National Park (Ethiopia, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Woodchat Shrike is recorded against all the birds logged in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary (56 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), 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.
