The white-tailed shrike (''Lanioturdus torquatus'') is a small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

bird from the family

Platysteiridae Platysteiridae is a family of small, stout passerine birds of the African tropics. The family contains the wattle-eyes, batises and shrike-flycatchers. They were previously classed as a subfamily of the Old World flycatchers, Muscicapidae. These ...

. It is also known as the chatshrike or ground batis. It occurs only in western

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

and

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

in thorn scrub. It forages from ground level, where it hops about in large bounds and upright posture, to 25m above ground, scanning for insects. The very short tail, with a small black mark at the tip of the central two feathers, is always carried down, never sticking up. Its range of calls includes loud ringing territorial whistles. This curious bird, which some consider to have close affinities with the batises and others the

bushshrike 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 allud ...

s, was discovered in 1837 by James Edward Alexander in the Naukluft Mountains of Namibia. Waterhouse subsequently described it in 1838, the name ''Lanioturdus'' ('shrike-thrush') reflecting the uncertainty of its classification, and ''torquatus'' denoting 'collared'. The sexes have a similar appearance. It is a common, endemic, breeding resident in the region, small seasonal migrations taking place. Its favoured habitat is scrub-savanna, thornbush and mopane-veld. It is found singly or in pairs during the breeding season, and in small groups at other times. It is a clumsy flier with shallow and rapid wingbeats like other batises. Nests are usually located in thorny

acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...

s and are constructed by both sexes. Nests are deep, neat well-moulded cups incorporating spider-web and placed about 3 metres above ground. The usual clutch is 2-3 eggs pale-green to white with sparse reddish-brown spots. Only the female incubates the eggs.

References

*Shrikes of Southern Africa - Tony Harris & Graeme Arnott (Struik Winchester 1988)

External links

* White-tailed Shrike
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1318330

white-tailed shrike The white-tailed shrike (''Lanioturdus torquatus'') is a small passerine bird from the family wattle-eye, Platysteiridae. It is also known as the chatshrike or ground batis. It occurs only in western Angola and Namibia in thorn scrub. It forages ...

Birds of Southern Africa