It is relatively small, almost like a snow-white plush toy, similar to a Long-tailed Tit. But nothing could be further from the truth, it is the killer like no other. Great grey shrike can kill animals larger than itself. It feeds on birds, lizards and insects. It can hang in the air and watch the countryside in order to search for prey. Excess food is not wasted. Great grey shrike skewers its victims or their body parts on the sharp spikes and returns to them when it feels hungry. Due to the coloring it is easy to see, unfortunately, from my observation I assume that there are not many left. I have seen it myself twice. The size of Great grey shrike is almost similar to Kingfisher (weight-60g, wingspan to 30cm). Physically, the difference is huge. Apart from the color, Great Grey Shrike has a rather long tail, and a small beak. On the other hand, Kingfisher has a massive big nose and a short tail. Their predilection for meat is quite similar, except that one consumes up to 10 fishes per day, the other prefers meat.
Last-minute news - 03/2015
There are many galleries where I would like to have better quality photos. The shrike gallery is undoubtedly one of them. The shrike is probably the only “predator” among the Passeridae species occurring in Poland. Unfortunately neither the light nor the shrike was favorable. The bird was very skittish and despite of a 600mm lenses with a converter I only took a few photos. However even the few pictures taken recently changed the previously modest portfolio of this species so I have remodeled the gallery on my website.
Last minute news 06/2017
I took several pictures of the great grey shrike, which were a excuse for the reconstruction of the gallery, which is still waiting for better photos...
Last minute news – 11/2017
It appeared for a while in front of the lookout point. It is hard to find a great gray, even harder to take good photos, so it should be noted in the information and the gallery have to be enriched with two new photos, for variety’s sake in the gallery of the great gray so far modest one on my website.