Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

Today we have a little birdie that's a big enigma. This is a White-Tailed Shrike, Lanioturdus torquatus. It is also known as a White-tailed Shrike Flycatcher, as a Chatshrike, or as a Ground Batis. These names reflect the confusion around its relationships. It was discovered in 1837 by James Edward Alexander, a Scottish traveller, and described the next year by George Robert Waterhouse, an English naturalist. He gave it its scientific name, which means 'Collared Shrike-Thrush'. It's definitely not a thrush or a chat, though. It was for a time classified with the Bush Shrikes, the Malaconotidae, an entirely African family. In appearance, it very much resembles the Batises except for having longer legs, and a bill with a hooked tip. Batises in turn used to be classified in the Flycatcher family, the Muscicapidae, but have recently been shown to not be closely related to them, and have been classified into a family of their own, together with the wattle-eyes. This family, the Platysteiridae, is also entirely confined to Africa. Indeed, this is the family to which the whitetailed shrike also seems to belong. It is in effect an aberrant, largely terrestrial batis. It is given its own genus within the family.

This shrike-like batis has a restricted range, only occurring in north-western Namibia and south-eastern Angola. It inhabits dry, broken terrain with lots of rocks and scrubby, thorny trees, or Mopanes. It lives alone, in pairs, or small groups. It forages on the ground a lot, hopping with long bounds. It has a very upright, alert posture. It will occasionally fly up into trees as well. The sexes look the same. It is very distinctively coloured in black, white and grey, with a prominent black collar around its lower neck, and the distinctive short, white tail, which has a small black patch towards the end on its upper surface. The tail is always angled downward, never cocked. White-tailed shrikes eat insects, of which there are an abundance in the hot semi-deserts of Namibia and Angola. They nest in rather low trees, making small, densely-constructed cup nests of grasses bound with spider webs. The female lays 2, rarely 3 eggs, bluish white with reddish speckles towards the large end. The female incubates them alone, but both sexes feed the chicks.

Not much else is known about these intriguing little birds. They occur over a large range, in an area with a small human population, and are for the present safe from extinction.

Willem

19.06.23 Front Page

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