The red-backed shrike

The red-backed shrike’s genus name, Lanius, comes from the Latin word for “butcher” and reflects this bird’s habit of impaling its prey on thorns, the tips of branches or barbed wire. When it doesn’t eat its prey straight away, the red-backed shrike builds up a reserve, called a “larder”, that it uses during bad weather, when insects are sparse, or to feed its chicks. This passerine bird feeds mainly on insects (beetles, large grasshoppers, etc.) and small vertebrae (voles, shrews, lizards, frogs, etc.).