Woodchat shrike - psilos photography

A breeding bird on the continent this is an annual vagrant to the UK usually being seen April to October. Open country with Olive groves and oak woodland are preferred habitats for this bird. A woodchat's prey is mainly insects, beetles, dragonflies, grasshoppers, wasps and bees. They are also known to take eggs from birds nests and even voles small lizards and even birds like willow warblers. Like other shrikes it hunts from prominent perches, and impales corpses on thorns or barbed wire almost like a larder. The winter months are spent in tropical Africa. The photo below shows a juvenile bird.