Loggerhead Shrike - The Butcher Bird

Look at this video I got of a Loggerhead Shrike.  A clip of this video was used in a Canadian affiliate of National Geographic for one of their shows.  I like the song this bird sings.  It's simple, but easy to recognize.  This bird captures lizards and impales them on barbed wire to keep for later. Hence the name the butcher bird.  You can see the sharp hooked beak it has.  I did post on an older blog a video of this bird eating a lizard. 

Here is a picture I got of one on a post.  Here is what the Cornell lab of Ornithology says about the Shrike, " The Loggerhead Shrike is a songbird with a raptor’s habits. A denizen of grasslands and other open habitats throughout much of North America, this masked black, white, and gray predator hunts from utility poles, fence posts and other conspicuous perches, preying on insects, birds, lizards, and small mammals. Lacking a raptor’s talons, Loggerhead Shrikes skewer their kills on thorns or barbed wire or wedge them into tight places for easy eating. Their numbers have dropped sharply in the last half-century."

Are you looking at me? Here are some cool facts from the Cornell lab of Ornithology - not my writing - " 

• A Loggerhead Shrike can kill and carry an animal as massive as itself. It transports large prey in its feet and smaller victims in its beak.  
• The upper cutting edge of the Loggerhead Shrike’s hooked bill features a pair of built-in pointy projections, aptly named “tomial teeth.” Like a falcon, the shrike tackles vertebrate prey with a precise attack to the nape, probably using these tomial “teeth” to paralyze the animal with a jab to the spinal cord.  Loggerhead Shrikes impale noxious prey such as monarch butterflies and eastern narrow-mouthed toads—then wait for up to three days to eat them, which allows time for the poisons to break down.   
• “Loggerhead,” a synonym for “blockhead,” refers to the unusually large size of this bird’s head in relation to its body."

100% my original work, except where noted! Copyright 2018® Mark Vance Photography

I am an award winning filmmaker. Many of my short films have been shown in film festivals all over the Untied States. Several of my bird videos have been used by the Natioanl Audubon Society and seen on TV shows in the United States and Canada. 

I went to California State University, Northridge and majored in TV and film production. I grew up in Hollywood, California and made super8 films with Frank Darabont who wrote and directed "The Shawshank Redemption" and created "The Walking Dead" for TV. Also, working on the super8 movies was my friend Greg Melton who is the Production Designer on "Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.".

Thanks for watching!