The loggerhead shrike has a hooked bill and is all gray, black and white. The gray is on its head and back. The black is on its tail and wings, and the white is on patches on its wings, outer tail feathers and its underparts. Like the bird below, they hunt from posts and other conspicuous perches. They are known as "butcher birds" because, lacking talons, they impale their prey (lizards, small birds and insects) on thorns or barbed wire before eating it.
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| Loggerhead shrike on post at Merritt Island in Florida |
I have only seen a loggerhead shrike on one other occasion, at Corn Springs in the Chuckwalla Mountains of eastern southern California. It had a lizard skewered on the thorn of an ocotillo.
I like his poufy hair-do and his Lone Ranger mask.
ReplyDeleteLone Ranger mask. Very good. It would be fun to find a Tonto.
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