Shrike!

Cephas, CC BY-SA 4.0
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 via Wikimedia Commons

 At the 1st Day Hike at Lake Arrowhead State Park we were excited to see a Loggerhead Shrike. For those of you who bird primarily in town, you may have never seen one as they are found in the countryside. They like open spaces for hunting.

The shrike is a beautiful bird, as you can see in the photo to the left. From a distance, it looks like a chunky mockingbird, but you can see it has cleaner lines and the black mask is a giveaway.

These birds are often called "butcher birds" due to their habit of impaling their food on thorns and barbed wire for consumption later. This allows them to capture prey when it is available, hungry or not, and keep it for when food is less available. 

As we walked the trail, we found several bugs impaled on mesquite thorns. I took a picture of a large grasshopper. In addition to this one, we found a smaller grasshopper, a damselfly, and a beetle, handy for a tasty snack. I would think it would be easier to have a larder with all its food together, but then, if some other shrike or bug-eating critter happened by, all of the food would be lost, so spreading out the largesse seems wise. That then brings up the issue of remembering where you put your food. You ever said to yourself, "I'm going to put this here for safekeeping," and then can't remember where you put it? Imagine doing that for multiple items. The damselfly looked a little crispy--perhaps this was one of those put away and forgotten. Of course, it wasn't near as tasty looking as the fat grasshoppers, so perhaps the shrike just chose better options.

Shrikes don't eat only insects and other bugs. They will also eat reptiles, birds, and small mammals. If they can carry it off, they will eat it, and they can carry their own weight in food.

The Texas shrike population has declined more than 76% since 1969. For shrikes, and all birds, please don't poison the invertebrates.  If you're walking out in the country, look for impaled insects and other prey in mesquites, on barbed wire, or in some case, stuffed in a small crevice.

Good birding!

Report Out 1st Day Hikes

Photo courtesy of Lynn Seman

Every January 1st, the state parks host 1st Day Hikes. I attended the hikes at Lake Arrowhead State Park. It was a beautiful, although chilly, day. Bright sunshine and a relatively light wind made it seem warmer.

The earlier hike was on the Dragonfly Trail and the later one on the North Onion Creek Trail. In between there was a gap of time that I used to bird other areas of the park. The earlier hike was not as well attended as the later one (go figure!) As far as birds go, the day was not the best, but I still saw some good birds. In addition, I watched a couple of coyotes and some white-tailed deer.

Birds seen/heard included: Canada goose, gadwall, green-winged teal, northern pintail, northern shoveler, American coot, double-crested cormorant, great blue heron, killdeer, ladder-backed woodpecker, black vulture, Carolina chickadee, common yellowthroat, Loggerhead shrike, song sparrow, savannah sparrow, white-crowned sparrow, and a flock of meadowlarks. The meadowlarks could have been eastern or western as both occur in our area.

On the way home, I picked up an American kestrel.

Plan now for next year. Pick a park and plan to attend one of the hikes.  The various hikes are at different times (to include beginning at midnight!), lengths, and difficulty.

Good birding!

New Year Bird Prediction

 

Bernard DUPONT, CC BY-SA 2.0
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via Wikimedia Commons

I have a superstition that the first bird I see on New Year's Day is a predictor of my birding success for the upcoming year. Because of that, I tried very hard not to look at my feeders that morning. I was heading out to a hike later and thought I would likely see a better bird on the way. But motion in yard drew my attention anyway, and there were two birds on one of my feeders--a white-winged dove and a Eurasian collared dove. Just what I was trying to avoid!

I was bummed. I told some of my fellow Texas Master Naturalist members at the hike and one of them said I should look at it that I saw two birds and therefore, that would mean I will see twice as many birds, regardless of the fact that neither of these birds are particularly exciting. I'm going to use their interpretation.

                                                    Good birding!                                                   

Mohan Raj, CC BY-SA 3.0
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 via Wikimedia Commons