A Shrike

Looking out my window at work is cathartic. Today it was surely cathartic; the hills, the snow, but also exciting- A SHRIKE! Shrikes are, in one word, COOL. They are predatory songbirds with hooked bills and they impale their prey (small mammals, large insects, birds, reptiles and amphibians) on barbed wire or thorny trees to save it for later. COOL. Northern Shrikes are actually birds of the tundra that come down "South" to southern Canada and the Northern US for the winter. Loggerhead Shrikes are found here in certain areas, and other parts of the N. US all year. I don't know which Shrike I saw; their ranges overlap in winter in this part of the US. But for me, either way, it is a rare sighting. I know I saw a Shrike here once last year, but before that, I had only seen one other Shrike in my life. Big deal you might say, but to a birder, it is. Most of our local songbirds/Passerines are seed-eaters, berry-eaters, insect-eaters, some combination of, but Shrikes are songbirdsofprey- COOL! And apparently, if you are a male Shrike and trying to attract a female, the more variation you have in your larder of impaled prey, the more chance you have to get a mate. Girl Shrikes look for good hunters. Makes sense. This Shrike landed on our birdfeeder. Not to eat the seed, to eat the birds eating the seed, no doubt. COOL! Come to Tanglewood and look for the Shrike, I know I am going to keep looking.