Fiscal

Description:

Also known as 'Butcher-bird', 'Jackie Hangman', 'Southern Fiscal' or 'Fiscal Shrike', this is a small predatory bird belonging to Shrike family (Laniidae). It is black and white shrike with a long tail, reaching all together 20 to 22 cm in length and sporting a typical shrike-like hooked bill. It hangs its prey on thorns of acacia, which earned it its local names (butcher, hangman). Previously counted as one species with Northern Fiscal (L. humeralis).

Habitat:

The Southern Fiscal is a common African species, inhabiting divers habitats, all except dense forests. Here observed on urban borders, in grassland and acacia woodlands on shores of lake Awassa, in Ethiopia.

Notes:

Lake Awassa (or Hawassa) is a part of main Ethiopian Rift Valley series of lakes, situated at some 1700 m of altitude. Like most of Rift lakes in Ethiopian highlands, this is an endorreic lake (landlocked mass of water having no outlet and not connected to the sea), and as such surrounded by marshes that regulate its levels through evaporation. Because of marshes and its forested shores, the lake is known as birdwatcher's paradise - very rich with various waders. Unfortunately, many of these marshes, or at least those of an easy access to visitors are very polluted by plastic garbage - mainly plastic bottles and bags...