SINGING BEHAVIOR OF THE LONG-TAILED SHRIKE(LANIUS SCHACH ERYTHRONOTUS) MALE
The singing behavior of a single male of the Long-tailed Shrike was described for the first time. A total of 44.2 min of recordings of this individual obtained in southern Kazakhstan, from May 24 until June 16, 2007, were analyzed. While vocalizing, the male altered between call bouts (3–282 sec long, median 52 sec, n = 18) and song bouts (6–202 sec, median 67, n = 22). The male had a repertoire of 13 call types used in call bouts. Each song bout consisted of several different syllable types. Totally, there were 143 syllable types in the repertoire. The syllable type repertoire was subdivides into 11 ‘themes’ containing between 3 and 33 (median 8) syllable types. The bird sang the syllable types in a given theme for a time before eventually introducing a new theme.