The Black-crowned Tchagra (Tchagra senegala) is a bushshrike

Bushshrike

The bushshrikes are smallish passerine bird species. They were formerly classed with the true shrikes in the family Laniidae, but are now considered sufficiently distinctive to be separated from that group as the family Malaconotidae....

. This family of passerine

Passerine

A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...

 birds is closely related to the true shrike

Shrike

Shrikes are passerine birds of the family Laniidae. The family is composed of thirty-one species in three genera. The family name, and that of the largest genus, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes were also known as "butcher birds" because of their feeding habits...

s in the family Laniidae, and was once included in that group.

This species is found in the Arabian peninsula

Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...

 and most of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 in scrub, open woodland, semi-desert and cultivation.

Identification

Black-crowned Tchagra is a colourful and unmistakable species, 19–22 cm in length. It has a black crown and eye stripes separated by a broad white supercilium

Supercilium

The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head. Also known as an "eyebrow", it is distinct from the eyestripe, which is a line which runs...

. The underparts are pale grey and the upperparts pale brown. The folded wings are chestnut and the tail is black, tipped white. The bill is black.

Sexes are similar, but young birds have a brown cap and a pale yellow bill. There are 14 subspecies, varying in size and the colour of the back, underparts and eyestripe.

Black-crowned Tchagra has a descending whistling song, Chee-chee chee cheroo cheroo, and can be readily tempted in to sight by imitating this call, presumably because the bird is concerned that there is an intruder in its territory. The male also has a switchback display flight.

Behaviour

Black-crowned Tchagra lays two or three heavily marked white egg

Egg (biology)

An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...

s in a cup nest in a tree or bush. Both sexes, but mainly the female, incubate for 12–15 days to hatching; the chicks fledge after another 15 days.

It is similar in habits to the shrikes, hunting insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s and other small prey from a perch in a bush, although it sits less conspicuously than true shrikes.

External links

• Black-crowned Tchagra videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection
• BirdLife Species Factsheet