Occasionally this winter, I've seen a Northern Shrike in a hawthorn patch half a mile from my house on my morning walk. During the past week the shrike seems to have moved his base of operations to my yard. I assume it's the same shrike since the sources I have say males and females have separate winter territories and the territories are large. I think of this shrike as a "he" because he does so much singing, but I don't know if the females sing, too.



Last Monday after work, I was strolling around the yard with the binoculars when I heard a bird crashing through the junipers making terrified peeps. I turned around to see the shrike, almost too close to focus the binoculars, hopping around in the lower branches of the shrubs peering down into a brush pile. Now, I've always had trouble reconciling shrike appearance with its lifestyle. Shrikes look too, um, passerine to be mammal and bird predators. Well, this shrike, with his beak agape, close enough to the see the hook in his beak, staring intently into the brush at whatever had escaped, too concerned with his hunt to be afraid of me standing 15 feet away, looked like a predator. I went into the house to get the spotting scope and settle on the porch to watch him hunt, since I've never seen a shrike hunting before, but the show was over. He flitted around from the tops of the tall trees singing for awhile as the sun was setting.



For most of this week, the little birds in the yard have been hunkered down. The House Finches seemed to have either been eaten or fled. The Song Sparrows barely peeped. The House Sparrows ended their early morning and pre-sunset graveling and bath conventions. They seem to be adjusting, however, or, being small birds with short lifespans and frequent terror, they need to get on with the business of breeding. This morning, the Song Sparrows were singing, the House Sparrows were chirping, and I even heard a couple of House Finches. (The same House Finches as the week before or a replacement set?) Predictably, the shrike wasn't in the yard. He was in the hawthorn patch. I saw him hover for a half second then drop into the grass, evidently working on a vole breakfast.



He was back in the yard by mid-morning singing. While he sings all the little birds lapse into silence. He reminds of that old commercial "When E. F. Hutton talks." E. F Hutton can only wish to command so much respect.



Kelly Cassidy

Pullman
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