Woodchat Shrike

Woodchat Shrike: Species Facts

Range & Habitat

The woodchat shrike is a trans-Saharan migrant that breeds mainly around the Mediterranean. In Spain it is the most widespread of the shrikes: it breeds mainly in the western half of the peninsula and also in Catalonia, the Levante (eastern Spain) and the Balearic Islands, where the birds belong to a different subspecies, badius. It breeds only locally in Galicia and along the Cantabrian coast and is missing from the high Pyrenees and the Canary Islands. According to SEO/BirdLife, birds reach the peninsula between March and May, leave in summer and early autumn, and spend the winter in the African savannas.^[1][2][5]

It is a bird of open Mediterranean landscapes with scattered trees and shrubs. In Spain it is closely associated with dehesas of holm oak and cork oak with low shrub cover, grassland and pasture, and also uses orchards and tree crops, farmland mosaics, vineyards and field margins; it avoids dense forest. Its highest densities are in dehesas grazed by extensive livestock farming and surrounded by low grassland where it can catch its prey, mostly insects, and the 2003 national breeding bird atlas found its highest densities in Spain in the dehesas of Extremadura.^[1][2][5]

Hunting perches. Like other shrikes it is a sit-and-wait predator: it watches from a perch — high branches of shrubs, fences or walls — and drops onto its prey. A 2016 study of migrating woodchat shrikes on the Greek island of Antikythira found they chose tall shrubs surrounded by low vegetation as hunting perches, which give a good view of prey on the ground and of predators, and that most hunting attempts were dives towards the ground; it also cites work in Mediterranean France showing that breeding birds need a low, broken grass layer where they catch their prey, mostly beetles, and isolated trees or bushes as lookouts and nest sites. In Spain, the 2003 atlas notes that it needs plenty of grass cover near the nest to catch prey. It eats mainly insects, above all beetles, as well as other arthropods, small mammals and reptiles, and impales some of its prey on thorny bushes, though less often than other shrikes, according to SEO/BirdLife.^[1][4][5]

Spain's third breeding bird atlas (fieldwork 2014–2018, published by SEO/BirdLife in 2022) estimated the Spanish breeding population at a little under 3 million birds on average (about 2.85 million, excluding the Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, for which there were no data), with the bulk in the centre and west of the peninsula; its model put about 342,000 in Extremadura.^[2]

Earlier figures, for the record: the 2003 atlas reported an estimate, taken from works of 1994 and 1997, of 390,000–860,000 pairs for Spain, with a fall of at least 20 % in population and range between 1970 and 1990.^[1]

Threats

A steep decline. According to the 2022 atlas, the trend detected by SEO/BirdLife's SACRE common breeding bird monitoring programme is alarmingly negative: an average fall of 2.8 points a year and an overall decline of 54 % since 1998, which the atlas reckons means a loss of about 2.4 million birds; only in the northern Mediterranean region is it stable. The atlas also records a widespread fall in sightings since the 1998–2002 atlas, most marked in Andalusia. The decline was already visible in the preliminary SACRE data for 1996–2001, when its abundance index fell by 50 %.^[1][2][3]

Loss of the large insects it feeds on. The 2022 atlas says the decline appears to be driven by several factors — habitat transformation, farm management and climate change — but that the disappearance of its prey, mainly insects, may be the main cause. SEO/BirdLife points to the indiscriminate use of pesticides, which reduces its food both in Spain and in its African wintering grounds.^[2][5]

Changes in the farmed landscape. The 2003 atlas lists the clearing of Mediterranean scrub, the removal of hedgerows and the use of pesticides, the loss of pasture as extensive livestock farming is abandoned and scrub takes over, conifer plantations and the removal of riverside woods. SEO/BirdLife also names hunting pressure and severe droughts caused by climate change.^[1][5]

Threats beyond Spain. The 2003 atlas also cites hunting in North Africa and droughts or changes in farming practices in its wintering areas.^[1]

Nest losses. In the dehesas of Extremadura, 80 % of failed clutches were lost to predation, according to a study cited by the 2003 atlas.^[1]

Conservation Status & Work

Lanius senator: Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List (global assessment of the species, published in 2022).^[7]

In Spain it is included in the Listado de Especies Silvestres en Régimen de Protección Especial (List of Wild Species under Special Protection) under Real Decreto 139/2011, but without a threat category in the Catálogo Español de Especies Amenazadas. SEO/BirdLife states that the 2021 Red Book of the Birds of Spain classes it as Endangered (EN); the 2003 atlas gave it as Near Threatened (NT).^[1][5][6]

Its numbers are followed by the SACRE common breeding bird monitoring programme, carried out each spring by SEO/BirdLife since 1998 and funded by Spain's environment ministry between 2005 and 2012, and its range and population were mapped in the national breeding bird atlases of 1998–2002 and 2014–2018.^[2][3]

The measures proposed by SEO/BirdLife include reviewing its listing in the national catalogue of threatened species, given the worrying decline, measures in farming and forestry and continued monitoring. The 2003 atlas called for keeping patches of trees in open country, avoiding the consolidation of farm plots, maintaining traditional crops, preserving extensive wooded areas — including the Extremadura dehesas where it reaches its highest densities — and riverside woods, and for international monitoring and research in its wintering grounds.^[1][5]