Lanius meridionalis
Lanius meridionalis
The Iberian grey shrike is distributed only in the Iberian Peninsula and southwestern France (Keller et al., 2020; BirdLife International, 2024). It is present throughout most of Spain, except for the Cantabrian coast, Atlantic Galicia, part of the Pyrenees, and the Balearic and Canary archipelagos. It is also absent from Ceuta and Melilla (Infante in SEO/BirdLife, 2022). It is the only sedentary shrike species, although juveniles carry out dispersive movements in winter.
It occupies almost the entire Community of Madrid, except for highly deforested and urbanized areas in the southeastern half. It prefers Mediterranean shrub and herbaceous habitats, although it also uses open forest environments such as juniper woodlands or ash groves (Díaz et al., 1994).
In the national park it is a scarce bird, as it lies at the limit of its distribution at the national scale. It has been detected at a few scattered points around the Hueco de San Blas and occasionally near Rascafría and Pinilla del Valle.
The species prefers agro-pastoral mosaics and open landscapes with scattered trees or small woody crop plantations. The highest densities occur in livestock areas with scattered trees and shrubs, which is why it is abundant in the dehesas of central and southwestern Spain (Hernández, 2020). It places its nests preferably on thorny shrubs such as Crataegus, Rosa, or Rubus, or on small trees with dense foliage, such as olive trees or oaks.
In the national park it is associated with mosaics of grasslands and shrubs—the typical environment it occupies outside the protected area. Within the park it always appears in this type of habitat, but at the lowest elevations and below the main forested zone.
At a global scale it is considered Vulnerable (VU; 2017). In Europe it would also be classified in the same category (VU; 2021). In Spain it is listed as Vulnerable in the 2021 Red List.
The Catalogue of Threatened Species of the Community of Madrid (1992) places the species in the threat category “Of Special Interest”.
BirdLife International 2024. IUCN Red List for birds. https://datazone.birdlife.org.
Díaz, M., Martí, R., Gómez-Manzaneque, Á. y Sánchez, A. 1994. Atlas de las aves nidificantes en Madrid. Agencia de Medio Ambiente y SEO/BirdLife. Madrid.
Keller, V., Herrando, S., Voříšek, P., Franch, M., Kipson, M., Milanesi, P., Martí, D., Antón, M., Klvaňová, A., Kalyakin, M. V. Bauer, H. Gr y Foppen, R. P. B. 2020. European Breeding Bird Atlas 2: Distribution, Abundance and Change. European Birds Census Council y Lynx Edicions. Barcelona.
Hernández, M. A. 2020. Alcaudón real–Lanius meridionalis. En López, P., Martín, J. y Moreno-Rueda, G. (eds.): Enciclopedia Virtual de los Vertebrados Españoles. Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales. Madrid.
SEO/BirdLife (Molina, B., Nebreda, A., Muñoz, A. R., Seoane, J., Real, R., Bustamante, J. y Del Moral, J. C., eds.). 2022. III Atlas de las aves en época de reproducción en España. SEO/BirdLife. Madrid.