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Welcome to the Opus, an interactive, multimedia encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. You can use the Opus to find out about everything to do with birds - from the birds themselves to the places you can find them.
Identification
Adult
- Grey head and back
- White belly, throat, flanks and chest (flanks often faintly barred pale grey in females)
- Black wings with white patch at base of primaries
- Medium-long tail, black with white outer feathers
- Black mask on face extending to base of bill, but not over top of bill
- Distinctive stout, hooked black bill
Variations
Populations differ in color of both upper- and underside, extent of white on scapulars, wings and tail, size and shape of black mask and bill, and in presence vs absence of and if present in color of supercilium. See more in the taxonomy section.
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Taxonomy
Complex, and potentially liable to further revision[2]. A large number of subspecies were split as Southern Grey Shrike. One subspecies was left there but renamed to Iberian Grey Shrike, but most were returned to Great Grey Shrike for now. Populations from northeastern Asia and North America formerly included here have recently been split as Northern Shrike[1, 2]. Whether more splits are coming is an open question.
Subspecies
Clements recognizes these 12 subspecies[1] (however, notice that not all resources agree on which subspecies are valid)....
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