Red Back

The juvenile red-backed shrike in Gloucestershire at the moment, sitting pretty on a dead bramble branch. 

With a beautifully hooked beak sometimes called the 'butcher bird' because of its habit of impaling its prey of insects, small birds or even mammals on thorns or barbed wire in a larder, they are becoming increasingly less common and are now on the Red List. The RSPB estimate only 2-3 breeding pairs in the UK so any that you see are probably on passage wintering in tropical Africa.