Great Grey Shrike
Lanius excubitor
LCLeast Concern
- Family
- Shrikes (Laniidae)
- Order
- Passeriformes
Overview
The great grey shrike (Lanius excubitor) is a large and predatory songbird species in the shrike family (Laniidae). It forms a superspecies with its parapatric southern relatives, the Iberian grey shrike (L. meridionalis), the Chinese grey shrike (L. sphenocerus) and the American loggerhead shrike (L. ludovicianus). Males and females are similar in plumage, pearly grey above with a black eye-mask and white underparts.
Breeding takes place generally north of 50° northern latitude in northern Europe and Asia.
Summary from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Range and habitat
Countries
- Afghanistan
- Albania
- Algeria
- Andorra
- Armenia
- Austria
- Azerbaijan
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Benin
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Chad
- China
- Croatia
- Czechia
- Denmark
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Estonia
- Ethiopia
- Georgia
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- India
- Iran
- Iraq
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kosovo
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Latvia
- Lebanon
- Libya
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Mali
- Malta
- Mauritania
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Mongolia
- Montenegro
- Morocco
- Nepal
- Netherlands
- Niger
- Nigeria
- North Macedonia
- Norway
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palestine
- Poland
- Qatar
- Romania
- Russia
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Somalia
- South Sudan
- Spain
- Sudan
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Tajikistan
- Togo
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- Uzbekistan
- Western Sahara
- Yemen
Sources and further reading
- Wikipedia: Great grey shrike
- eBird: sightings, maps and photos
- xeno-canto: sound recordings
- Birds of the World: full species account (subscription)
- BirdLife DataZone: status and threats
- IUCN Red List (threat status)
- AviList global checklist (taxonomy)
Last updated September 29, 2026.
