It is found in an extensive area between the Caspian Sea and north and central China southeast to the Qaidam Basin.

The common name is from the specific isabellinus, Neo-Latin for "greyish-yellow" probably named for Isabella I of Castile, said to have promised not to change her undergarments until Spain was freed from the Moors.

[3] This migratory medium-sized passerine eats large insects, small birds, rodents and lizards.

Like other shrikes it hunts from prominent perches, and impales corpses on thorns or barbed wire as a larder.

It breeds in open cultivated country, preferably with thorn bushes.