{"id":68953,"date":"2019-02-05T06:12:45","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T13:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=68953"},"modified":"2019-02-05T08:01:27","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T15:01:27","slug":"loggerhead-shrike-with-an-attitude-conclusive-proof-it-isnt-an-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/05\/loggerhead-shrike-with-an-attitude-conclusive-proof-it-isnt-an-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Loggerhead Shrike With An Attitude (+ conclusive proof it isn’t an act)"},"content":{"rendered":"

To the casual observer Loggerhead Shrikes may seem like just another songbird but in reality they’re fierce little predators whose prey includes arthropods, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, roadkill and carrion.<\/p>\n

“Wannabe raptors” indeed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

Because I’ve spent so much time with them over the years Loggerhead shrikes often seem to me to have a chip on their shoulder. During winter they’re solitary and for most of the year they’re aggressive toward birds of their own and other species in defense of their nesting and foraging territories. With few exceptions they dominate those interactions.<\/p>\n

And their\u00a0rasping, harsh shrieks and unmelodious calls reinforce that impression of aggressiveness. In this photo from my archives a shrike’s badass attitude is on full display as it reminds potential intruders of its territorial claim.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shrikes don’t have some of the predatory tools of a typical raptor – they lack talons and their feet are relatively small and weak – but they do have a sharp hooked beak that includes a tomial tooth like that of falcons which is used for penetrating the spinal cord and rendering the prey easier to kill. Here the left tomial or “falcon tooth” can be seen as a projection just behind the sharply hooked upper mandible.<\/p>\n

After dispatching the prey they often skewer or impale their victim on sharp projections like thorns or barbs of barbed wire in a behavior that has at least two functions – caching their food in “larders” or “pantries” for future use and allowing them to get the leverage required to pull the prey item apart into bite-sized pieces. After all, shrikes don’t have the talons or strength of larger raptors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II,\u00a0Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Here we see a Loggerhead Shrike in action. Some of the remains of a vole, in this case a leg and foot (notice the foot sticking up), have been impaled on a very sharp thorn similar to the one in front of the bird’s tail. The shrike is using the leverage provided by the thorn to pull a piece of meat off of the hide for consumption. Considering their lack of strong talons it’s a very efficient feeding behavior for shrikes. Northern Shrikes prey on mammals even more often than Loggerhead Shrikes do.<\/p>\n

Shrikes use the same technique on smaller prey. I’ve also seen and photographed them impaling insects like grasshoppers and dragonflies and then pulling their skewered little bodies apart.<\/p>\n

It’s a fascinating and gruesome behavior to witness and every time I’ve been so lucky I’ve felt highly privileged.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To the casual observer Loggerhead Shrikes may seem like just another songbird but in reality they’re fierce little predators whose prey includes arthropods, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, roadkill and carrion. “Wannabe raptors” indeed.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34203,"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":[3,5,334,392,346],"tags":[2827,3775,4435,409,206,256,4436,306],"class_list":["post-68953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-loggerhead-shrikes-shrikes-and-vireos","tag-caching-food","tag-feeding-behavior","tag-impaled-prey","tag-lanius-ludovicianus","tag-loggerhead-shrike","tag-prey","tag-raptor-characteristics","tag-tomial-tooth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/loggerhead-shrike-3624-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-hW9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68953","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=68953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}