A different kind of songbird

The Northern Shrike lives here only through the winter, one of only two shrikes that inhabit North America (there are none in South America). The other is the Loggerhead, which nests all around us in spring and summer. (There are casual records of the Brown Shrike wandering over from Siberia into North America, but they are rare.)

Shrikes are the sharks in the fishpond — songbirds that eat songbirds. As such, they are actually raptors in disguise — not true hawks of the Family Accipitridae (hawks, falcons and eagles) — but Lanidae, from the Latin, Lanius: butcher. Hence the shrike’s nefarious name: “Butcher bird.”

Shrikes look so much alike they are tough to tell apart. If you had a loggerhead and northern side-by-side you could see a noticeable size difference; the northern is larger than the loggerhead. (Bigger is better for animals that live in northern latitudes; bulk is great for keeping warm.) Lacking the rare opportunity to see the two species together in the field, however, you have to look closely for the subtle difference in the head.

The loggerhead’s beak is not as hooked as the northern and the former has a black line above the beak, while the northern has a white streak between the beak and the gray head — no black. The time of year the bird is observed is also a clue; the rule-of-thumb is loggerheads in summer, northerns in winter.

Being a songbird, a shrike does not posses the strong feet necessary to grasp and kill prey. This makes it necessary for them use their strong, hooked beak to kill insects, small birds, lizards and rodents. They carry off or drag away prey, make short flights to a barbed wire fence or thorny bush and impale their prey much as a butcher hangs up a side of beef.

If you’re wondering how a shrike can make a living on insects in winter around here I have some news that you may not have taken into consideration.

On the first warm days in winter insects venture forth to get on with the business of living. My bees for example come out and begin spring-cleaning on warm days in January.

On a cool day in mid-February I observed a northern shrike perched on a powerline near Tumalo bring up a pellet (remains of indigestible material). I could not believe it, but as the pellet fell into the sagebrush and grasses I thought it looked like a black beetle. As I watched, the shrike suddenly dropped into the sagebrush near me and flew back to the wire holding a black beetle in its beak. I was astounded: beetles running around in February? Impossible, I thought.

But when I went over to inspect the pellet — which was made from several beetle parts — I found the reason for the strange activity. It was at least 10 degree warmer on the surface of the soil within the sagebrush and grasses than where my head was. Incidentally, the beetles gobbled up by the shrike were our smelly old stink beetles, Elodes (spp).

Being a songbird has provided the shrike with better eyesight than hawks and eagles. A shrike searching for a tasty morsel will perch in the top of a tree or on a wire and recognize a beetle, mouse, lizard or bird moving from as far away as 200 yards. Then swoop down on it at speeds of 45 mph! With such phenomenal eyesight, coupled with speed and agility, not much escapes a hungry shrike — northern or loggerhead.