The British Trust for Ornithology Notes and Announcements

Within the next decade the Red-backed Shrike may cease to exist as a British breeding bird. The picture painted by this latest survey of its status is a gloomy one. It would appear that the combined pressures of an adverse climatic trend, the fragmentation of its habitat in the name of ‘development’, and not least over-collecting of its eggs, have reduced the population to a dangerously low level.