Photo by W. Reid] [Wishaw, N.B.
AUSTRALIAN MAGPIE.
A common South Australian form, known also as the Piping-crow.
Five species are commonly included in the list of British birds, although only two occur with any frequency: of these, the Great Grey Shrike visits Great Britain every winter; whilst the smaller Red-backed Shrike is an annual summer visitor to those islands, breeding, however, only in England, occurring but occasionally in Scotland, and being almost unknown in Ireland, where only one specimen has ever been recorded.
The Red-backed Shrike, writes Dr. Sharpe, "reminds us of a fly-catcher in the way in which [it] captures its food, for it has undoubtedly favourite perches, on which it sits, and to which it returns after the capture of an insect. It is frequently to be seen on telegraph-wires, where it keeps a sharp look-out in every direction, and a favourite resort is a field of freshly cut grass. It also captures a good many mice and small birds, not pursuing them in the open like birds of prey, but dropping down on them suddenly. In the British Museum is a very good specimen of the larder of a red-backed shrike, taken with the nest of the bird by Lord Walsingham in Norfolk, and showing the way in which the shrike spits insects and birds on thorns; and the species has been known ... to hang up birds even bigger than itself, such as blackbirds and thrushes, as well as tits of several kinds, robins, and hedge-sparrows, while it will also occasionally seize young partridges and pheasants."
Photo by W. F. Piggott] [Leighton Buzzard.
REED-WARBLER.
A common British bird, arriving in April, and leaving again in September.