When you think of songbirds do you get images of colourful little birds seemingly minding their own business while sweetly singing their little hearts out?

This might be somewhat true for many, but there is one songbird that sports a black bandit mask and has a sinister reputation – the great grey shrike.

While it may still sing sweetly, this pint-sized predator's grisly dining technique has earnt it the moniker "butcher bird".

Only the most alert beetle, lizard or small bird is safe

It is an expert hunter but in order to be able to feed, it impales its victims of small animals and birds on the long thorns of trees and bushes, or even on barbed wire, where it can then disembowel them by pulling with its sturdy, sharply hooked bill.

Like a scene straight from a horror film, the great grey shrike leaves these macabre decorations hanging out of reach from most potential thieves, meaning they can be snacked on later.

It is Europe’s largest shrike and hunts in classic shrike manner, observing from a high vantage point and swooping down to seize its prey in its powerful feet before returning to its grisly larder. Only the most alert beetle, lizard or small bird is safe.

Seeing one in the UK is a rare treat as fewer than 100 birds visit our shores each winter from their northern European breeding grounds, staying until April or May. So if you're in the right place and with a bit of luck, you may get the chance to spot one of Britain's most unlikely looking birds of prey before they leave for the summer.

Watch presenter and naturalist Mike Dilger track down one of the UK's rarest visitors in the Forest of Dean in the clip below, taken from the BBC series 'The One Show'.

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