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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/northernshrike190414as.jpg\")
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The shrike is an unusual songbird: it behaves as if it thinks it is a raptor. This behaviour has earned it the nickname of the butcher bird.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Northern Shrike is an uncommon winter resident here, but there is a small uptick in numbers in April as birds that wintered to our south move north to breed in the arctic. Yesterday, I watched a shrike with a captured rodent at Kokanee Creek Park.<\/p>\n
The Northern Shrike has a hooked bill, but it lacks the raptor’s claws to grasp its prey.
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After watching its surroundings for a while, the shrike flew down to the ground and returned to a tree with a rodent. But, what was the prey: a mouse, a vole, a shrew? I cannot tell as its head was never seen.
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/northernshrike190414bs.jpg\")
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Very quickly the Northern Shrike left its temporary perch and carried its prey off into the brush. It was probably searching for a thorn on which to impale its victim. That is a way the shrike holds its meal in place as it uses its hooked bill to tear the prey apart to eat a piece at a time.\u00a0
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/northernshrike190414cs.jpg\")
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The shrike is an unusual songbird: it behaves as if it thinks it is a raptor. This behaviour has earned it the nickname of the butcher bird.\u00a0 The Northern Shrike is an uncommon winter resident here, but there is … Continue reading