Brown Shrike / Tirjup Coklat

The brown shrike migrates between its breeding grounds in Siberia and its winter home (September to April) in Malaysia.  They are excellent navigators, often returning to the same location year after year.  In both their summer and winter homes these shrikes maintain territories.  Open forests including parks and gardens are preferred.  As a consequence of territoriality, late arrivals are pushed into less favourable habitat.

Shrikes apparently originated in Africa in close association with thorn trees and have spread worldwide.  They are often called ‘butcher birds’ because, in the breeding season, the males will skewer both food and non-food items on thorn trees or (adapting to modernity) barbed wire fences.  It is thought the males need to prove their hunting prowess to females. Of note:

• Apparently some females are fooled if males display non-food items. 
• Other males will raid these larders, either because they are hungry or because they want to make the territorial male appear less proficient.  Hence, territorial males are kept busy re-stocking their larders and attempting to keep thieves away. 
• If larders are exclusively a property of the breeding season, any shrike larder hound in Malaysia would belong to the related Long-tailed Shrike / Tirjup Ekor Panjang.

Shrikes sing to announce their possession of a territory.  Their winter song is quieter than their summer song, which suggests to me that winter territories are smaller than summer territories.  Firstly, Siberia is big and Malaysia is small.  Secondly, in the winter each shrike only has to feed itself; it does not have to provide food to nestlings.

At different times of the day shrikes can be found perched in different parts of the tree.  Early in the morning they will perch at the top of the tree to sing, although this makes them more visible to predators.  

In the mid-afternoon -provided they are well fed and their territorial boundaries are secure- they hide close to the centre of the tree.  

During hunting bouts they are found on the outer edge of lower branches.  Fortunately for photographers, shrikes are patient birds; they can wait on one perch for as long as twenty minutes before giving up and moving to another perch.

Brown shrikes mostly feed on butterflies and moths.  When they see a butterfly they fold their wings and dive towards the ground to capture it.  If their first dive is unsuccessful, shrikes will chase a butterfly in aerial pursuit for several minutes.  Hunting is partly instinct and partly learnt.  Older birds have been found to have a higher success rate than younger birds.  

Like all birds, shrikes need to replace their feathers.  Moulting happens in Malaysia, prior to migration.  At this time flight feathers are lost.  Generally the sequence is from the “innermost primary outward to the last feather of the wingtip.” https://www.avianreport.com/bird-molting/  In consequence, flight can be weaker and hunting behaviour adapts.  At this time the shrike will hop around on the ground like a babbler and may eat ground insects such as termites and ants.