A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 Shrike!!!

I had never seen a shrike before. Then yesterday as I was getting in my truck, there he was. Sitting on top of the bramble bushes watching my feeder. I love when I see something new!
I ran in for my bino's but he was gone {of course} when I came back out. I'll assume it was a northern since I'm in their range and loggerheads are extremely rare in NY.
I saw a new biiiiird!

Thats so cool Wrennie!!!

That's very cool and new birds are always excitng. Of course, I wouldn't know a shrike is he bit me in the butt.

That's awesome, Wrennie! I'm going to go look that one up ~!

If he bit you in the butt you'd know it!!
They are similar loking to a northern mockingbird with a black zorro mask. They kill & eat smaller birds, lizards, rodents etc.

You have a Lifebird, Wrennie! I used to see Shrikes all the time here, but they appear to be vanishing from Tennessee. The last Northern Shrike I saw was about TEN years ago. As I watched it , it flew down, caught a LARGE grasshopper, then flew up and stabbed the body on a barbed wire spike and proceeded to tear strips off the body and eat them. This is CLASSIC Shrike behavior and has earned them the name, "Butcher Bird". It was the FIRST and ONLY time I had actually witnessed this behavior, and it was the LAST time I saw a Shrike.

Like Wrennie said they look like a Northern Mockingbird on steroids, with a Zorro Mask. We have the LOGGERHEAD Shrike here in Tennessee: Wrennie has the NORTHERN Shrike, but the two species are VERY similar. I haven't taken ANY pictures of a Shrike, yet, but found some GOOD ones on Google Image Search

LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE

Wow that's a cool bird--thanks for the pic Thorny! And very cool that you had one and it's a new one for you Wrennie!