Saw a Northern Shrike today.\u00a0 It’s a robin-sized bird that\u00a0preys on\u00a0rodents and birds and insects.\u00a0 It catches its prey with its beak, usually breaking the animal’s neck, or crushing its skull.\u00a0 I haven’t seen a shrike catch anything, but apparently it is a violent affair.\u00a0 The shrike today was at the top of a tree, probably scouting for prey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A few years ago at Laurel Creek we had a shrike hanging around every day.\u00a0 It would sit at the top of the same few trees.\u00a0 So one day I had a grade 4 class doing a bird study, and we see this bird at the top of a tree.\u00a0 The tree is far away.\u00a0 I tell the students, “That bird way up there is\u00a0a Northern Shrike!\u00a0 It’s called the ‘butcher’ bird because it will impale its prey on thorns and barbed wire, and then pull pieces off over a few days.”<\/p>\n
“It’s so far away,” says a student.<\/p>\n
“Experience children!\u00a0 I’ve watched this bird the past few weeks.\u00a0 I know its habits.\u00a0 You’ll just have to trust me on this one.”<\/p>\n
“It’s flying towards us!”<\/p>\n
“No worries children, you are much too big for it to catch.\u00a0 But it will go after anything it thinks it can capture, including grasshoppers, garter snakes, but not…”<\/p>\n
“It’s a Blue Jay!”<\/p>\n
Pause.<\/p>\n
“So it is!\u00a0 The Blue Jay.\u00a0 Uh,\u00a0symbol of our beloved baseball Jays.\u00a0 A trickster for sure!\u00a0 Mimics the call of the Red-tailed Hawk.\u00a0 Impersonates shrikes!\u00a0 Yup.\u00a0 There it goes.”<\/p>\n
![\"File:Lanius](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/4\/44\/Lanius_excubitor_1_%28Marek_Szczepanek%29.jpg\")
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