It did not used to be news!

Back in the 70’s, when I began birding, finding a loggerhead shrike was a cinch. Take a walk in any of our wilder or more open areas, and there would be a shrike somewhere nearby, on the hunt for grasshoppers, mice, even the unwary small bird. Today it’s another matter, and the news of two, possibly three, shrikes on this year’s Christmas Count drew cheers from all participants. You can understand why when looking at old CBC data. This same count circle that produced two birds in 2011 regularly had counts in which sixty was a slow day. The decline has been steady, low forties 25 years ago, under twenty birds ten years ago, one bird in each of the three past counts.

The same pattern of decline in loggerhead shrikes applies to much of southern California, and the more urbanized an area has become, the greater the percentage of decline. Habitat loss is the critical factor, mostly from the loss of open space these birds need. They want open country for their hunting and a scattering of tress or shrubs in which to nest. In our suburban landscape, there is precious little of that commodity, and what there is is beset by constant manicuring, pesticides and feral cats. Not happy shrike country, and the numbers show it.

Yet shrikes are wonderful birds. Bandit-masked grey birds with white wing and tail flashes, they are reminiscent of mockingbirds, which may well be found in places where shrikes are. But you can tell them apart instantly from great distances if you see one fly. Unlike a mockingbird with its clean straight point to point flight, a shrike will launch itself from a perch, dip down and skim the ground, finally swooping up onto its destination perch. It’s also a chunkier bird, more jay-like in silhouette.

Another name for the bird is butcherbird, taken from its habit of storing food on thorns or barbed wire. While this may seem extreme, it is hardly that. Many birds and other animals take their food whenever it is available, finding places to store what they cannot immediately eat. You undoubtedly have seen scrub jays storing peanut after peanut, moving constantly between source and storage point until the supply runs out. Unlike a jay, which hides its food, say by stuffing a peanut under a loose roofing shingle, shrikes store their extras out in the open where they can keep an eye on them. That dangling, impaled lizard is close by and handy, even if, to us, more than a little gruesome. Lunch anyone?