Yellow-billed Shrike (Corvinella corvina) [XC298810]
by Bram Piot from Campement Kangaba, Koulikoro, Mali (call)
Yellow-billed Shrike (Corvinella corvina) [XC127579]
by Peter Boesman from For\u00eat de B\u00e4ngr-Weoogo, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (call)
Subspecies
Treated as congeneric with Magpie Shrike (Urolestes melanoleucus) on basis mainly of similarities in morphology (e.g. long tail), vocal communication patterns, and social behaviour co-operative breeding, gregariousness). Subspecies intergrade, and intermediate individuals exist. Subspecies caliginosa sometimes merged with affinis.
Proposed subspecies chapini (from Kavirondo, in Kenya) synonymized with affinis.
The following 4 subspecies are recognised:
corvina (Shaw, 1809) - Extreme southern Mauritania, Senegal and
Gambia south to Guinea-Bissau and northern Guinea, east to Burkina Faso, south-western Niger
and north-western Nigeria.
togoensis Neumann, 1900 - Southern part of range from western Guinea
and Sierra Leone east to central and eastern Nigeria, northern Cameroon, Central African
Republic, southern Chad and western and central Sudan.
caliginosa Friedmann and Bowen, 1933 - Southern Bahr el
Ghazal (south-western Sudan).
affinis Hartlaub, 1857 - Southern Sudan, north-eastern DRCongo, northern Uganda
and western Kenya.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet