Appearance:

Male with brown back, pinkish white underparts and a bluish grey head with a black eye mask. Female more dull with barred underparts. Juvenile like female, but upperparts also barred . Tail brown with white edges in all plumages. Females and juveniles easily confused with other southern/eastern or vagrant shrikes like; Brown Shrike, Isabelline Shrike, Woodchat Shrike and Turkestan Shrike. Differs from those in white sides of tail, barred rump, mantle and scapulars, scaly underparts and dark or yellowish base of bill (not pink).

Sound:

Call a hard "check check" (like striking two rocks together), and a variable nasal "twee" Song surprisingly varied with many expert imitations of small passerines, interwoven with bell-like ringing and dry chirping sounds. May be confusing and hard to identify if bird not seen. Song not very loud, but phrases can be very long.

Alarm call, song:

Distribution:

Xeno-canto: map

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

Appearance:

Small bunting with warm rufous cheeks framed in black. Often with a pale spot hind-cheek, towards the neck. Pale eyering, pale wing-bar, rufous median and black lateral crown-stripe . Bill grey with straight culmen. Easily confused with female Reed Bunting. In addition to mentioned criteria, also note pinkish legs and much paler lores. Sexes more or less alike, but birds with rufous throat and contrasting crown-stripes are usually males.

Sound:

Contact call a sharp and short "zeek". Song pleasant and melodic. Variable phrases with variable tempo. Repeated single notes are frequently interrupted by trills. Timbre rich in harmonics like other buntings.

Song:

Distribution:

Xeno-canto: map

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

CC

CC-photo:ansel.ma, Licence,Link.

CC-photo:Hiyashi Haka, Licence,Link.

Sound:Recorded by Andreas Linden, http://www.xeno-canto.org/ ,CC license