Species Spotlight: Loggerhead Shrike

Scientific Name: Lanius ludovicianus

Appearance: a masked, hook-billed songbird. Black mask meets over the bill, no marks on breast, bill color is all black, has white wing and tail patches. The overall gestalt is of a big-headed, slim tailed songbird with a hooked beak.

Common Name: " Butcher bird" for it's habit of creating larders of impaled prey

Size: 7 to 9 inches, slightly smaller than an American Robin

Range: breeding range extends from southern Canada through the lower 48 states.

Food Preferences: mostly large insects, sometimes small birds, mice and frogs, toads & lizards

Hunting Technique: Often sits immobile for long periods watching for prey. In Summer, most of the diet consists of insects such as grasshoppers, beetles and other large insects. In Winter, the diet shifts to mice and small birds. Does not have talons like raptors, so flies after birds until the prey gets tired, hits them hard enough to stun them with it's heavy beak, then carries the prey in its bill to a thorn or piece of barbed wire and impales it to kill it.

Breeding & Habitat: Male is attached to his breeding territory and rarely gives it up. They prefer to nest in a bush or scrub tree that has a dense canopy, or (rarely) in a cluster of vines.

Nesting: Male and female build nest about 3 ½ feet off the ground in the crotch of a tree branch. The cup shaped nest is made of thick twigs and lined with fine roots, fibers, mud, feathers and fur. Male feeds female on nest.

Eggs: average of 6 light yellow, dark speckled eggs. Begins incubating after the second-to-last egg is laid, then incubates for 16 days. Once the eggs hatch, both parents are involved in feeding them. Chicks fledge after another 16 days, then stay with the parents for 3 - 4 weeks.

Status: Species of special concern in West Virginia. Declines in populations throughout the US have been quite large. In West Virginia, these declines have been linked to habitat loss and pesticide use.

Please report all sightings of Loggerhead Shrikes to West Virginia's Partners In Flight coordinator and WV DNR ornithologist Rob Tallman. His phone # is 304-637-0245, e-mail address is rtallman@dnr.state.wv.us, and mailing address is Rob Tallman, WV DNR, PO Box 67, Elkins, WV 26241.

NOTES:

Within their range, Loggerhead Shrikes prefer "edge" habitat, nesting along roadsides and hedgerows in agricultural areas. They prefer tree species with thorns such as hawthorns, locusts, crab apples, and osage orange. By the late 1960's Loggerheads began to rapidly decline and have never regained former levels. Causes of the decline are unknown, but increased use of pesticides is thought to be a main culprit. Pesticides have reduced the supply of insects, the Shrike's main food, and have adversely affected the bird's reproductive physiology, according to information from the Wisconsin DNR. The removal of farm fence rows has also destroyed much of the nesting areas the Shrikes are used to using.

You can help the Shrikes by maintaining farm and roadside hedgerows, reduce or eliminate your use of pesticides, reporting sightings of these unusual birds, and by participating in the annual Breeding Bird Survey which is run by local birding groups and the WV Dept of Natural Resources. For more information, contact Rob Tallman at the WV Dept of Natural Resources (304-637-0245) or call us here at TRAC at 304-466-4683.