The Northern Shrike and the Good Samaritan

This blog post will be more about the experience I describe than about the shrike images.

The Northern Shrike has been a nemesis bird for me for a long time.  I have many good images of its southern cousin the Loggerhead Shrike but the northern is an uncommon winter visitor to the northern US  and I’ve seldom seen one and never been close enough to the species for good, detailed images – until this week.  And I very nearly didn’t get the shots. 

 Northern Shrike

This winter there has been a single (as far as I can tell) Northern Shrike wintering at the Great Salt Lake wetlands where I often shoot but I’ve never been able to get close enough to it for a quality shot.   Two days ago I was finally able to approach the bird but it wouldn’t have happened without the kind actions of a good Samaritan.

As I was driving down the dirt road I could see the shrike flitting from perch to perch in front of me.  Several times I almost got close enough but then it would spook again.  Finally, just as I got close and trained my big lens on the shrike, wouldn’t you know it – a car came up behind me on the narrow road.  If it had passed it surely would have spooked the bird.  But it didn’t.  The driver could see my lens pointed out the window at the bird and simply stopped on the road, turned his engine off and waited respectfully for over 5 minutes as I photographed the shrike before it flew off.   As he then went around me I flagged him down and thanked him for his kindness. 

In my experience out there, such consideration is almost unheard of.  Typically the drivers will either speed by which often flushes the bird or if they’re photographers they will drive up to where you are in an attempt to get the same shots – which also usually scares the subject off.  I’ve even had them honk their horns as they pass in a deliberate,  juvenile and extremely rude attempt to scare off  the bird. 

I didn’t get this man’s name but I wish I had.  He was in a silver Toyota Matrix (possibly a Rav4 ).  I owe my first decent photographs of a Northern Shrike to a considerate stranger and I’m grateful. 

  Northern Shrike on cattail

As luck would have it after so many years of never getting close enough to this species, the very next day I got fairly close to the same bird again.  This time it was on some cattails with the bluish tinged ice of a large frozen  pond as background.   Just goes to show that you never really know what will happen “out there” if you are tenacious about spending enough time at it.  

I finally got my Northern Shrike! 

Ron