Condor: 1981


Daniel D. Gibson: Migrant Birds at Shemya Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska.
Condor 1981. 83: 65-77.

Lanius cristatus lucionensis. Brown Shrike.

SE Palearctic. Accidental. An immature was observed making animated aerial sorties for kelp flies (Fucellia) from beach boulders and logs on 10 October 1978 and was collected (UAM 3696, imm., male by plumage, 35.7 g, light fat). After comparison at both NMNH and the American Museum of Natural History, Banks identified it as this form.

Breeding no farther north than Korea, this subspecies is separated from Alaska by all three other subspecies (see Vaurie 1959). A sighting at St. Lawrence Island, 4-6 June 1977, judged to have been of L. c. cristatus, is the only prior Alaska record of the species (King et al. 1978).