The Southern Grey Shrike, Lanius meridionalis, is a member of the shrike family.
It is closely related to the Great Grey Shrike, Lanius excubitor, with which it used to be considered conspecific; where they co-occur, they do not interbreed and are separated by choice of habitat.
The race L. m. meridionalis is resident in southern Europe and north Africa. It is slightly smaller and darker than the Great Grey Shrike, and prefers dry open country.
The race L. m. pallidirostis breeds in central Asia and winters in the tropics. It is much paler than Southern Grey or Great Grey, and is sometimes split as a separate species, the Steppe Grey Shrike, L. pallidirostis. It too prefers more arid habitat with sparse vegetation.
This medium-sized passerine bird eats large insects, small birds and rodents. Like other shrikes it hunts from prominent perches, and impales corpses on thorns or barbed wire as a "larder".
The plumage is generally similar to Great Grey Shrike apart from the differences noted above.
The migratory eastern form is a scarce vagrant to western Europe, including Great Britain, usually in autumn.
Famous quotes containing the words southern and/or grey:
“I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous ... as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both north and south. It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We have not the slightest idea that women are made of such light material that the breath of any fool or knave may blow them on the rocks of ruin.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)