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Unlike shrikes in North America, red-backed shrikes are common and (sometimes) confiding birds that frequently set up nesting territories near human habitations. They breed in Eurasia and overwinter in the tropics. Males (above) have red backs, gray heads, and the typical black mask of shrikes; females are less strikingly patterned and have a general brownish coloration. Young birds (below left) have even more barring than females. The birds in these pictures were in several locations in eastern Poland. They were quite wary and only the male at upper right permitted close approach, and then only briefly. |
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