By Ron Smith This is the story of the shrike that did not attack. I like to read or write in our sunroom overlooking the back yard, glancing up occasionally to see what the thrashers, hummingibrds or chachalacas are doing and also hoping to see new species of birds and butterflies for our property list. Recently I noticed a robin-sized bird perched alertly on the top wire above our fifteen-foot privet hedge. It was a Loggerhead Shrike, intently focussed on a smaller bird a yard away on a lower wire. The latter was a Yellow-throated Warbler, a mostly southern bird impressively colored with a gold gorget finely lined in black, white underparts and gray plumage. This little jewel was nervously twitching back and forth on its perch, and I don't blame it because the shrike is an efficient predator, and it seemed to lean forward and down in attack mode. About nine or ten inches long, its whitish breast and gray back are combined with a rather piratic black mask, black wings with whiite trimming --- and a wickedly hooked beak. "The Gem" Yellow-throated Warbler Copyright of Michael & Diane Porter I have seen shrikes cause our feeder birds up north to become fear-stricken statues or vanish instantly not to return for hours. Once a shrike swept in and lifted a goldfinch off the feeder deck, carried it away and, I assume, killed it in its usual way of hacking the skull with that beak. They do not have the killing power with their talons that a hawk or owl possesses; their feet are rather small. There are two species, the Northern, called the Migrant Shrike, which we see in Michigan in the winter, and the Loggerhead, which is the one you will see in the Valley. The name comes from its cabeza grande; a loggerhead is a long handled tool with a large ball at the end which was heated to be dropped into liquid for warming or for melting substances such as tar. The word "shrike" is derived from the Middle English word for shriek,"shriken." They do make some weird sounds, although they seem more raspy than piercing. "The Butcher Bird" Loggerhead Shrike An interesting apellation for this creature is the Butcher Bird because it has a custom of hanging its food supply, insects, birds, snakes or rodents, on a thorn or a barbed wire fence. Nothing like aged meat, you know. The shrike can take larger prey like a Mourning Dove, and it has been seen catching snakes as large as 16 inches. The main diet in the summer months, however, is insects. Even wasps are readily handled, usually held by the abdomen while the stinger is rubbed off on a branch. I wish I could tell you the outcome, but they both flew away without hint of pursuit. All I can suggest is that watching the creatures of the wild is as strange and absorbing as watching human behavior: that which is bizarre may be the norm. Yellow-throated Warbler photo: Copyright of Michael and Diane Porter; birdwatching.com Loggerhead Shrike photos: Courtesy of Dave Menke and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. All text copyright of Ron Smith. Visit Ron Smith's Bird Carvings website, too!