{"id":53363,"date":"2017-11-08T05:06:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T12:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=53363"},"modified":"2017-11-08T05:28:55","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T12:28:55","slug":"loggerhead-shrikes-with-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/08\/loggerhead-shrikes-with-prey\/","title":{"rendered":"Loggerhead Shrikes With Prey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plus a Box Elder County caf\u00e9 where you definitely\u00a0do NOT\u00a0want to eat!<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Just over two weeks ago while I was looking for birds in a fairly remote area of Box Elder County this Loggerhead Shrike swooped down very close to my pickup and scooped up a beetle (a stink beetle I believe)\u00a0right in front of me. The bird was close enough that this image is almost full frame (uncropped). When the bird picked up the insect it briefly became tangled in\u00a0a strand of vegetation so it held this posture long enough that I was able to get about a half-dozen shots just like this one.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Then the shrike flew with its prize to a nearby sign post to enjoy the meal. As you can see\u00a0the bird\u00a0acted pretty excited about the\u00a0snack as it was gobbled down.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I was hoping to get some\u00a0interesting takeoff or flight shots when the shrike left the perch but…<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

it wasn’t going far enough for that so its wings were barely opened when the shrike launched. Its destination was…<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

the second post supporting the sign only a couple of feet away.<\/p>\n

Apparently when it swallowed the beetle it also got some plant debris in its mouth so it opened and closed its beak several\u00a0times\u00a0as it tried to deal with that little annoyance.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Thirteen minutes later I encountered another shrike as it attempted a delicate and potentially painful task. It had captured a yellowjacket and then flew to this perch to consume it. Yellowjackets are predatory wasps that unlike honeybees often sting their victims repeatedly (barbs on their stingers are tiny which allows the repeated stings) and it was obvious that the shrike was well aware of the danger. The bird spent quite a while crushing the head and (I believe) mashing the body\u00a0to make sure the wasp was dead before swallowing it.<\/p>\n

It’s my guess that the shrike had suffered the wrath of a yellowjacket before. I hate those damn things except when they provide bird food.<\/p>\n

On that same morning and in the same area I\u00a0came across something that both\u00a0amused and puzzled me. Perhaps one of my readers can explain it.<\/p>\n

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It was this sign out in the middle of nowhere in Box Elder County.<\/p>\n

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It was next to a small and narrow\u00a0dirt road where driving is prohibited so I couldn’t investigate what the Carrion Caf\u00e9 actually is and besides I’d already had my chocolate donut and milk for breakfast so I wasn’t hungry and I didn’t want to compete with vultures for breakfast anyway…<\/p>\n

This land is managed by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources under the Department of Natural Resources.\u00a0I believe the entire area is called the Salt Creek Public Shooting Grounds and the sign appears to be an official one but I can’t figure out what really goes on here (an internet search came up empty) and I’m quite curious about it. I\u00a0could guess but that’s all it would be – a\u00a0guess, but whatever it is I was pleased\u00a0to see that\u00a0DWR apparently has a sense of humor.<\/p>\n

If any of my local readers know what the Carrion Caf\u00e9\u00a0actually is\u00a0I’d sure\u00a0appreciate having my curiosity itch scratched.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Plus a Box Elder County caf\u00e9 where you definitely do NOT want to eat!<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,392,346],"tags":[2550,3655,3656,409,206,256,3657,3654,3652,311,904,3653],"class_list":["post-53363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-loggerhead-shrikes-shrikes-and-vireos","tag-box-elder-county-utah","tag-carrion-cafe-sign","tag-department-of-natural-resources","tag-lanius-ludovicianus","tag-loggerhead-shrike","tag-prey","tag-salt-creek-public-shooting-grounds","tag-stinger","tag-stink-beetle","tag-utah-2","tag-utah-division-of-wildlife-resources","tag-yellowjacket"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/loggerhead-shrike-7751-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-dSH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}