• 

  Profile

• 

  In flight

Songbirds

Loggerhead Shrike

Lanius ludovicianus

• uncommon
• 45 km/h
• Near Threatened

A songbird that impales prey on thorns and barbed wire. Called the butcherbird. Uses a larder to cache food for lean times.

Population

~7 million mature individuals (Partners in Flight, 2019 estimate); population decreasing, ~20-29% decline over the most recent decade (IUCN), with a much steeper long-term decline (~71% per North American Breeding Bird Survey trend since the 1960s/1970s)

Habitat

Open country with short ground vegetation, bare foraging patches, and scattered elevated perches — pastures, grasslands, savanna, agricultural fields, orchards, and roadsides with fencerows, hedgerows, or thorny shrubs/hawthorn/red-cedar used both as nesting/hunting perches and as "larders" for impaling prey (often on barbed wire)

Fun fact

Despite looking like a small songbird, the Loggerhead Shrike hunts like a raptor and is nicknamed the "butcher bird" for impaling prey on thorns or barbed wire — both to tear apart food it can't grip with its feet and to cache surplus kills; young shrikes reportedly need to experience actual impaling during a critical developmental window to fully learn the behavior.

Range

North America: breeds from southern Canada across the contiguous United States into Mexico; northern/interior populations are migratory and winter farther south, while southern and coastal populations (including several highly reduced or endangered island/regional subspecies, e.g. San Clemente Island and eastern Canada, the latter down to under ~35 breeding pairs) are largely year-round residents; range and numbers have contracted sharply in the northeastern and midwestern U.S. and adjacent Canada

Diet

Carnivorous predator of large insects (grasshoppers, beetles) and arachnids, plus small vertebrates including lizards, small snakes, amphibians, rodents, bats, and occasionally small birds (prey up to ~25g, sometimes larger than the shrike itself); lacking strong raptor talons, it impales prey on thorns, spines, or barbed wire to anchor it for tearing apart or to cache food, earning it the nickname "butcher bird"

Size

0.215 m

Wingspan

0.3 m

Lifespan

12.5 years