A few days ago Mia and I found this Loggerhead Shrike sitting prettily on a dried sunflower on Antelope Island. The bird was using the sunflower as a hunting perch.
1/1600, f/8, ISO 500
I’ve always been amazed by the incredible eyesight of many bird species. This shrike somehow spotted a spider crawling through the thick grass about 20 feet away from where it was perched and immediately flew down to grab it.
1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500
It was a relatively small spider and I have no idea how the shrike was able to see it in all the dense grass. Even though the background is busy here I still liked the shot for the interesting look at both the spider and the tongue of the shrike. It’s my presumption from looking at this photo that the saliva of the shrike is viscous and sticky, enabling the prey to stay attached to the tongue during the very fast process of pulling the spider to the back of the throat with the tongue.
1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500
A heavily cropped, close-up view of the same image provides a clue. You can see that there’s a sheet of saliva stretched between the bottom of the tongue and the floor of the lower mandible and it does appear to be quite viscous. I had no idea that it would be so “juicy” in there. Nothing earth-shattering here, just some avian trivia in a photo that I found interesting (yes, my interests can be a little strange at times…).
Ron
Hey, Ron–It’s always pleasant to look at a wildlife image that’s tack sharp with perfect light and a clean background, but I’ll take one of these, anyday. Your observations on avian behaviour are always keen and thought provoking. Keep ’em comin’!….Mitch