British , July 1951, Frontispiece

ISABELLINE ( isabellinus). ISLE OF MAY, SEPTEMBER Q6TH, 1950. From afield sketch by Miss W. U. Flower. (See pp. £*3io ?r$. 2'7 '- 2/9 BRITISH BIRDS NUMBER 7, VOL. XLIV, JULY, 1951.

ISABELLINE SHRIKE ON THE ISLE OF MAY: A NEW BRITISH . LAST September Miss Winifred Flower and Miss M. I. Kinnear observed at the Isle of May a shrike which did not appear to resemble any of the species described in The Handbook. Full details, together with field sketches, were forwarded to Oxford and were seen by the late B, W. Tucker, who accepted the record as referring to the , Sir Norman Kinnear has compared this material with specimens in the British Museum and confirms the identification. The question of the scientific name to be used for this bird is one which, in our opinion, should be settled by a suitably constituted committee of the British Ornithologists' Union. There is no question that Lanius isabellinus, Hemprich and Ehrenberg, 1828, is the oldest name, but opinions in the past have differed as to whether it should be regarded as a full species or as a race of either the Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) of or the Red-tailed, or Brown, Shrike (Lanius cristatus) of eastern . It should be mentioned that isabellinus is one of several pale forms of Lanius which occur in the desert regions of south-west and central Asia and that there are also several forms of the Red-tailed Shrike in eastern Asia, but it is unnecessary here to go into further details as to these Asiatic races. Hartert in Vbgel Pal. Fauna, 1910, united the forms of the Isabelline group with those of the Red-tailed group as races of Lanius cristatus Linn., and Stresemann in Journ. f. Om., 1927, included the Red-backed Shrike also as a race of this species, but in 1930 Stegmann (in Om. Monatsber.) pointed out that differences in the shape and proportions of the wings and tails sharply divided the members of the Red-tailed group from the remainder. He separ­ ated the Red-tailed Shrike and its races as a species (L. cristatus) from the Red-backed and Isabelline forms, which he united as a second species, L. collurio. This arrangement was accepted by Hartert and Steinbacher in the Supplement to Vogel Pal. Fauna, 1932-8, also by Stresemann and Bannerman (Birds of Tropical W. Africa, 1939) and Niethammer (Handbuch d. Deutsch. Vogelkunde, 1937). The inclusion of this bird, as Lanius collurio isabellinus, in the last-named work is due to Gatke's record of a young male obtained on Heligoland on October 25th, 1854, the only previous record of the occurrence of the Isabel- line Shrike in western Europe. The latest review of these is that by G. Olivier (Mono- graphie des Pies-Grieches du genre Lanius, 1944). This author agrees with Stegmann that the Red-tailed group should be regarded as of specific rank, but considers that in view of differences in the 218 BRITISH BIRDS. [VOL. XLIV. wing-formula, as well as in colour, it is also allowable to treat the Isabelline group as constituting a species, L. isabellinus, distinct from L. collurio. This being the latest pronouncement we are pro­ visionally following it here and treating the Isabelline Shrike as a species new to the British list. The breeding range of the species Lanius isabellinus extends from Transcaspia and the southern Khirgiz steppes through Turkestan and Mongolia to southern Transbaikalia and Alashan and Ordos in inner Mongolia. Various authorities are in disagreement as to the ranges of the three subspecies L. i. isabellinus, L. i. phosnicuroides and L. i. speculigerus, but agree that the latter is found in Mongolia and Transbaikalia. On migration the Isabelline Shrike travels south-westward through north-western , Persia, southern Iraq, and southern Arabia to winter in Africa from the Sudan, Abyssinia and Somaliland south to Uganda and Kenya and west to the Lake Chad region. W.B.A. [We publish below the account of their observations supplied by Miss Flower and Miss Kinnear, and, as a frontispiece, a repro­ duction of one of Miss Flower's field sketches coloured before looking at specimens or works of reference.—THE EDITORS] ON September 26th, 1950, while observing migrant birds on the Isle of May, we saw a shrike fly into a walled garden near the light­ house. The bird was about the size of a Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) and of strikingly pale colouring. The shrike was watched for a total of about i| hours, mostly in very good light, at a range down to 20 feet, through coated lens binoculars 9 x 35. Description :—Upper-parts : narrow black line across forehead. Crown pale rufous (matching withered burdock on which it perched), paling to warm buff at nape and hind neck. Mantle and back pale greyish-buff, scapulars pale buff, rump and upper tail-coverts rufous, of a deeper tone than crown. Sides of head : lores, feathers round eye and ear-coverts intense black, continuous with forehead line. Supercilium cream. Chin and all under-parts conspicuously white, tinged pale pinkish buff on upper part of flanks. Tail-feathers appeared uniformly russet. Primaries pale brown, with outstanding white patch at base, forming prominent bar when wing spread. Secondaries pale brown with lighter edges. Bill and legs appeared black or dark grey. There were no crescentic bands or any other markings on the upper or under surfaces, and no black or white on the back, rump or tail. Behaviour. The bird's carriage and movements were typical of a shrike. When not resting with head sunk between shoulders, or turning watchfully from side to side, it made repeated hops to the ground from its burdock perch, or short sallies from the wall. It was seen to take food from the ground, including a large earth- VOL. XLIV.] ISABELLINE SHRIKE. 219 worm. The bird could be watched easily, since it was unperturbed by a fairly close approach. No sounds were heard. A south-east wind on September 24th had changed to a northerly gale on the 25th, and diminished to a milder north-west wind on September 26th. Very few migrants were on the island on Sep­ tember 23rd, but a few came in on both September 24th and 25th, including a Yellow-browed Warbler (Phylloscopus inomatus) among other warblers. We were unable to identify the shrike while on the island, since its colouring was different from any plumage of the shrikes described in The Handbook. Comparison of field notes and sketches with skins in the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, and with the plate and description in Dresser's Birds of Europe, leads to the conclusion that the bird we saw was an adult male, in full winter plumage, of the Isabelline Shrike (Lanius isabellinus). W. U. FLOWER and M. I. KINNEAR