The Yellow-billed Shrike (Corvinella corvina) is a small 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...

 bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 in the 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...

 family. It is sometimes known as Long-tailed Shrike but this is to be discouraged since it invites confusion with the Long-tailed Shrike

Long-tailed Shrike

The Long-tailed Shrike or the Rufous-backed Shrike is a member of the bird family Laniidae, the shrikes. The eastern or Himalayan race, L. s...

, Lanius schach, of tropical southern Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

.

The Yellow-billed Shrike is a common resident breeding bird in tropical 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...

 from Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

 east to Uganda

Uganda

Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...

 and locally in westernmost Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

. It frequents forest and other habitats with trees.

The nest is a cup structure in a bush or tree into which four or five eggs are laid. Only one female in a group breeds at a given time, with other members providing protection and food.

The Yellow-billed Shrike is 18cm long with a long tail and short wings. The adult has mottled brown upperparts and streaked buff underparts. There is a brown eye mask and a rufous wing patch, and the bill is yellow. Sexes are similar, but immatures show buff fringes to the wing feathers.

This is a conspicuous and gregarious bird, always seen in groups, often lined up on telephone wires. It is noisy, with harsh swee-swee and dreee-too calls.

The Yellow-billed Shrike feeds on insects which it locates from prominent look-out perches in trees, wires or posts.