mjm@oliven.olivetti.com (Michael Mammoser) (12/30/88)
Shrikes (also known as "butcher birds") have long been characterized as catching small birds as prey, although I have never seen a shrike with a bird before this winter. Last Tuesday, for the second time this winter, I saw a Loggerhead Shrike with a small bird that it had captured and killed. While doing the Los Banos Christmas Bird Count, I was driving along a dike next to a canal with a friend when we stopped to observe a Rough-Legged Hawk perched out in a field. To our amazement, we saw this shrike barely 3 ft. from the side of the car standing on a Least Sandpiper and repeatedly jabbing its beak into the seemingly lifeless body of the sandpiper. The shrike's throat and breast were extensively stained with blood. It then flew off with the sandpiper into the cover of some nearby sage, only to reappear a minute later to perch on a fencepost. It had evidently cached the bird in the sage. Evidently, the shrike had caught the sandpiper as we drove up and brought it up from the edge of the canal next to the car to finalize the kill, providing us with a chance to witness some of the life-and-death drama of the natural world. One of the amazing things is that the shrike could fly while carrying a bird almost as big as itself, albeit only a few feet off of the ground. Mike