Isabelline Shrike

The Isabelline shrike is a rather small songbird of sandy or grey-brown appearance and the Palearctic shrike with the least colour contrast. At 17–19 centimetres and about 30 grams it is as large and heavy as the red-backed shrike, with which it shares part of its range. Fully coloured males can generally be identified in the field, but juveniles, immatures and females are hard to separate from red-backed and brown shrikes. There is no size or weight difference between the sexes, and the colour difference is less striking than in the red-backed shrike but still clear. (German Wikipedia, general species account)

It occupies a wide area between the Caspian Sea and northern and central China, southeast to the Qaidam Basin. All Isabelline shrikes are migratory, the western subspecies in particular being long-distance migrants with wintering grounds in Arabia, East Africa and the Nile valley, west to the African Atlantic coast. (German Wikipedia, general species account)