Bird of the Month - December 2002

Northern Shrike
Lanius excubitor

by David Fix

When the yellowed leaves of cottonwoods and maples have begun to drop with the slightest breeze and the autumnal equinox is a vague memory, robin-sized predatory birds with drab gray-brown plumage drift southward from subarctic breeding grounds and appear in the Redwood Region.  With a hankering for open countryside and plenty of it, Northern Shrikes escape the attention of most human observers.  Sitting silently just below the top of an isolated sapling, along a rural hedgerow fronting an abandoned pasture, or on a projecting stub of driftwood in the dunes, a shrike may easily be overlooked—yet the bird itself would seem to overlook little of the songbird and vole populations that sustain it during the colder months.  Given its nasty disposition and vigor for the chase, smaller birds and mice alike must maintain watch for this meat-eating songbird.  Although most Northern Shrikes winter well to the north of us, late fall and early winter usually bring a very few of these hunters to fields, shores, and woodland edge in northwestern California.

Claiming great variety among many species worldwide, shrikes as a family are nevertheless specialized.  They are able to subdue and dispatch a variety of smaller creatures by using their hooked bills—their feet lack talons, and look much like those of other songbirds.  They are related to vireos, which perform similar butchery upon caterpillars;  as C.J. Ralph has put it, shrikes are Vireos Gone Bad.  Food captured is sometimes impaled on the thorns of prickly shrubs and trees or on barbed-wire fences, or may be jammed into a niche between crossed twigs.  The Northern Shrike (known as Great Grey Shrike in Europe) is unknown in our area in summer, retreating to the northern boreal forest and taiga edge to breed.  These birds begin to appear in Oregon by mid-October, but ordinarily are not detected in our area until November or later.  Most are young-of-the-year in rather drab feather, but once in awhile an adult in snappy pale gray, black, and white trim is seen.  Once present, an individual may remain for weeks in a given territory; others are seen but once.  Sightings in late winter are fewer, and reports after mid-March are unusual.  In many years, one or two of these birds grace our local Christmas Bird Counts, while in other years there are next to none.  Only one was reported in Humboldt County in 2001-2002.

When looking at a shrike, check to see if the bill has an easily-seen hook and a pale base to the lower mandible; if it does, it is almost certainly a Northern.  As young Loggerheads molt from juvenile into adult-like plumage by fall, any brownish shrike with an ill-defined ‘mask’ seen here from October to March is a Northern.  Other points separating Northern Shrike from Loggerhead are a thinner and (in immature birds) often dingier dark ‘mask’, longer tail, and greater size.  Loggerheads strike me as ‘cute’, looking like mere songbirds at a distance, while Northerns have a cruel aura—constantly looking as if they want to kill something.  

Likely places to see one of these birds are from lightly-traveled roads in the Lake Earl – Smith River area, the Arcata Bottoms, the north spit of Humboldt Bay, and the outer portion of the Eel River delta.  Carefully scanning all conspicuous tall saplings, fence lines, and other exposed perches in nearly treeless country for the vigilant, long-tailed silhouette of this shrike will eventually pay off.