The Oxymoron Of The Northern Shrike - Death Of A Songbird

Northern Shrike, Phippsburg, Maine March 2, 2011

Two Northern Shrikes photographed in Pembroke, Maine March 31, 2011. Note that each is on a different type of utility wire.

Northern Shrike in Pembroke, Maine with a caterpillar capture. I was photographing this bird on the wire above when it swooped to the ground in front of me and whisked up this delicacy.

     Now here's an oxymoron for you, the Northern Shrike is a predatory songbird. In my  ideal world, birds would be one or the other, either precious little singers, chortling and warbling in the trees telling us all is well with the world, or killers, but not both. Like most humans, I need a certain amount of order and logic. I like to compartmentalize things and when they don't wrap up in tidy packages the way my mind wants them to, I'm left confused and agitated.  My brain gloms onto discrepancies between sometimes glaring realities and what I want to be true. I want to believe in the tidiness of good and evil, right and wrong. The truth is, birds, no matter how lovely, must eat and some of them eat other birds, as does the Northern Shrike.
   Shrikes sit on wires or prominent elevations like this weather vane to hunt. They tail dip if alerted or courting, as do mockingbirds. Shrikes miss very little of what moves below them, suddenly launching in a tight tuck to the ground to snatch a catch. Like some hawks, they do a little hover flying when scanning fields. The Latin species name of the Northern Shrike, Lanius excubitor, means "Butcher watchman." The shrike has a hooked, sharp bill for tearing flesh and killing prey. They don't have talons, like other predators, so they can't grasp onto food. Instead, they impale their kills onto thorns or sometimes, the barbs of barbed wire. Early observers thought this to be wanton killing, but it allows the shrike to then pull bits of flesh away from the large insects which make up the bulk of their diet, or rodents and sometimes other birds. Food items that are too big to consume in one sitting are also stored by hanging on thorns or in the crotches of branches to be consumed later. This adaptation helps shrikes to survive periods of food scarcity. These food caches are also part of courtship displays by males seeking to impress females with their hunting skills. Usually, the caches are found about three feet off the ground and in the vicinity of nest sites. When I was younger I was often attracted to guys that had a "bad boy" streak. A guy that would hang a dead rat on a fence to woo me would have been right up my alley, too.
     At just under ten inches from bill to tail tip, the shrike is a powerful bird that will kill birds bigger than itself. The shrike comes up underneath and behind a flying victim then grabs the feet or tail snatching the unsuspecting bird from mid air or stunning it with it's strong bill.  The Northern Shrike is also a talented songster with an appealing,  melodic warble. They have been known to mimic the songs of smaller songbirds to lure them to their deaths. They are also easily confused in the field with Northern Mockingbirds, known too for their splendid ability to mimic and sing.
     In North America, there are two kinds of shrikes, the Loggerhead and the Northern. Their ranges overlap slightly during the winter. In Maine the most commonly seen is the Northern Shrike, also called the Great Grey Shrike in Britain. Shrikes are boreal birds of the taiga and northern forests. They migrate slightly south of their summering range for the winter. In southern Maine, Northern shrikes are usually seen as migrating birds. This year, there have been higher than usual numbers of them reported. They are territorial birds most often seen singly, though they do form monogamous mating pairs for the breeding season. Males and females look very much alike. Both build the nest, incubate and care for young. Shrikes are not endangered, though habitat destruction has likely resulted in reduced numbers. Pollutants, especially heavy metals, find their way into shrikes by way of the rodents they consume.
     Long ago I was suddenly fired from a job I desperately needed and truly loved. The event so devastated me that it  was the last job I had in health care as a registered nurse. I still have a Maine nursing license and will probably take it to my grave, though I no longer practice. I maintain my license, not because I think I might one day want to return to work in health care, but because for over half of my life, being a nurse was my identity. People often said to me "Wow, a registered nurse, huh? I could never do that kind of work. It takes a special person to deal with all that stuff. Blood? Yuk! Not me! Thank God there are people like you; I couldn't do it." I had a lot of pride wound up in being that special person they talked about.     
     And, in nursing, I wasn't just any nurse, either; I was the cream that rose to the top. I had a career with a capital 'C.' As a supervisor in a rural community hospital where there weren't doctors after supper time, I ran from one crisis to another. We nurses handled everything, the strokes, the heart attacks, the respiratory failures, car accidents, overdoses, all of it, until a doc could get out of bed and get there. It wasn't uncommon for the nurses to manage a case even when a doctor did show up because they weren't always as experienced as we were, or even sober. I took care of sick, terrified and often dying people, their families and my staff. As the interface between nurses, doctors, patients and families; I was the problem solver; and frequently, the hero. I thrived on the adrenalin rush coursing through my super star veins. I loved what I did for work and it was me. For decades, I lived and loved the crises and stories and glory.
     Then one day, all of a sudden it was over. Without warning, I was called into an office and fired. Flimsy reasons were given, thin excuses to cover the human resource depatment's decision. I hadn't done anything wrong! Outraged, I forced them to try to explain to me what was happening, but they said their decision was not performance based. "The patients and your co workers love you. You are an accomplished clinician, but it's just not working out. We need a comfort level," is what I was left with to make sense of the catastrophe that became my life.
    I was at first, filled with rage and wanting vengeance. In the hours when sleep was impossible, I plotted and planned how I would get back at them. I fantasized my vindication. I'd tear them down as they had torn me down! I wallowed deep in humiliation, confusion, anger and helplessness. Terrified  about money, I was scared for my children's welfare. I saw my whole life and future collapsing before  my eyes. The whys spun around in my tortured head night after night.  "It's just not fair! It's not right! Why? Why!!!????" I cried, howled, and ranted. I couldn't make sense of any of it. There wasn't a pigeon hole big enough or the right shape to stuff this bird into. I had done and been everything I knew how to be and yet, for some reason in the end, I was not good enough. That empty fact left me with nothing to hold onto and I slid deep into depression.
     I spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what had happened. Needing to make sense of it, to see the logic, I tried to find someone to blame. "Who did this," seemed a question with an answer that would restore order. A few faces and names linked to ordinary work place dust ups came to mind. Paranoia reigned my brain swamped by waves of rage from which I'd crash into grief. In the end, I never did know what was behind my being fired.  Eventually, it was just the passage of time that loosened my grip on the need to know. I had to get on with my life. But, I did conclude that at the heart of it was an error in my thinking, not my doing; I had forgotten that songbirds can also be killers. Most of the time, there's no right or wrong, just the need to survive.
    My employers were people just trying to do their jobs. They probably weren't the evil incarnate I was at one point sure of. Most likely, they don't even remember what for me remains one of the most painful events of my life. To this day, I don't know why I was fired, but I am pretty sure somebody simply did what they thought they had to do to survive. I was merely the one that wound up impaled on a barb.

Northern Mockingbird, Phippsburg, Maine May 27, 2010

Mockingbirds are easily confused with Northern shrikes. They have a pointed, not hooked bill, are a little larger and have a longer tail.

For some of the information, thanks to:
wikipedia.com
allaboutbirds.org
whatbird.com


Sibley, David A., The Sibley Guide To Birds (2000)  Knopf: New York (2001) pp 340-341
Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B. & Zim, H., A Guide To Field Identification - Birds Of North America (1966),Golden Press: New York ((1966) pp242-243



Wordless Wednesday - Heavenly Blue

On many photography sites I've noticed a feature called "Wordless Wednesday." I'm going to try to upload a single shot with nothing more than a title every Wednesday. Here's the first one. Let's see if I can keep my mouth shut.

Designed To Sell - Osprey Carrying Stick

We went boating on the Sheepscott River last night out of Robinhood Marina in Georgetown. That's Georgetown, Maine - not Washington, D.C. We went with close friends whom we have not seen all summer, because we've all been too busy. There is something really wrong with summer and life in general when it's too hectic and clogged up to enjoy friends and lolling around on a boat doing nothing at all. As Mr. Toad would have said in the Wind In The Willows, "simply messing about in boats." That was my favorite book in all the world as a youngster. I once did an illustration for a mock cover for the book. The illustration won me a prize which was one of the most joyful moments of my childhood. What a crying shame that any of us lose the ability to just relax and  enjoy what's around us. Rather, we feel as if we have to plow through it all at high speed. In fact, when we went with our friends, we had the intention of motoring up the river to an eatery in Five Islands. This made my husband very happy because we were going to be moving and there was food involved. He has zero tolerance for just sitting anywhere not being productive. But, our plans were foiled by thick fog. We had to sit, sit in the boat slip and do nothing.  

  Of course, I had my camera, but there didn't appear to be anything much to photograph. I resigned myself to noshing on cheese and crackers with soprasata while sipping Merlot. Well, actually, truth be told, guzzling. My father always admonished, "sip, don't swill," but I never got the hang of the difference. Then, I noticed these osprey. I had seen them immediately when I set my first foot on the dock, but I've taken loads of osprey photographs. I wasn't too excited about them. Then, the osprey came in with the stick and the two youngsters popped their heads up and I was off! Waves lapping at the hull became the bass hind note to the staccato of rapid fire shutter release.

   The osprey flew in several times with additional sticks which were artfully arranged and rearranged in the nest. The youngsters watched, presumably for food which was not immediately forthcoming. They got in the way of the interior decorating a couple of times resulting in some squabbling. During the hour or so that I watched, the osprey flew in with at least four sticks, but only one fish. The bird worked feverishly as if she had to make the place tip top to sell or to keep the chicks from falling through the floor. Though the osprey was doggedly industrious, I did notice that she was also able to sit for periods, doing nothing, simply looking out to sea. Good for her. That talent definitely puts her ahead of me on the evolutionary scale.

These osprey chicks are close to flying. They are flapping their wings and jostling around in the nest for room. They will make their first, clumsy attempts to fly in another week or so. Osprey are migratory here, so they had better get their act together. Before we know what hit us, it will be fall.

For more information than you might ever want to have on Osprey, click on this link.

For information on The Wind In The Willows, click this link. Take a breather and enjoy the wild ride.

Eaglet Update - Butchie And His Other Brother Butchie

I took these shots yesterday, July 12th at the Winnegance aerie. Butchie and his other brother Butchie, are much bigger since my last update. They are big enough that it's getting very cramped in the nest. Some wing stretching is going on, but not much. It was also eighty degrees and humid, so that may have accounted for some of their obtunded behaviors. They were panting from the heat and yawning. They are major poop machines, as you can see from the sides of the nest and the branches. There are great swarms of flies up there. I'm hoping to see them start trying to fly.

Give Me The Night Life! The Mickey Mouse Stalker: Black-Crowned Night Heron

This Black-crowned Night Heron is a good example of why it sometimes pays to be a late in the day birder, as I am. It's not a bird one would be likely to see in the middle of the day, but rather at night, as its moniker suggests. It's mostly nocturnal, like me. After all the other birds have gone to bed and said their prayers, this one starts hunting. It hangs around in shallow ponds, standing for long periods waiting to skewer frogs and fish. The Black-crowned Night heron is about twenty-five inches tall and semi-migratory. It generally needs open water for fishing, so from here, they go to the southeastern seaboard for the winter. This one lives in an alder swamp right near our house. The body of water is no more than a tangled mess of growth host to mosquitoes and barely noticeable unless one is a birder. This bird is sporting its breeding plumage. See that natty white plume rakishly worn on its head? Like a lot of herons, this guy nests in colonies in trees with other waders, like Snowy egrets. They aren't quite as sociable as the other waders, though and will usually nest on the periphery of the colony. From that vantage point, they also scout out chicks in other nests in the colony for a nighttime 'fridge' raid. That's right: they readily eat offspring of other birds, especially their housing project neighbors, gulls and terns. Sometimes, they can been seen in meadows where there are lots of rodents, like voles. Night-herons will stalk Mickey Mouse, too! Nonetheless, I think they are pretty cool to look at even though they are barfly thugs of the night.

For more information about Black-crowned Night Herons, click here:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-crowned_Night-Heron/lifehistory

Uncommonly Common - Common Yellowthroat

Today, while I was supposed be folding laundry and paying bills to make use of a rainy indoor day, I was stalking birds. If you don't think it was wet, look at these photos. You'll see the water dripping from the Spruce needles. I was concentrating on a fledgling Chipping sparrow whose parent was feeding it. I was not moving, in spite of the rain because I wanted the adult Chippie to come along so I could photograph the feeding (I was successful and will post that later). In the mean time, this Common Yellowthroat warbler almost landed in my lap. That will give you an idea of how still I had been and for how long. Black flies like this same kind of weather,too. I had to let them bite me. They especially like going for the area around the eyes. So, now I look like a boxer on the wrong end of a hard right-left combo punch. Maybe I could borrow a mask from one of these little guys. Common Yellowthroats are just that: common. However, they are not so often seen because they are secretive and favor thick brushy areas. They are insect eaters and prolific breeders. The females are yellowish all over and don't have the black head nor this snazzy mask. I've seen male Yellowthroats before, but never this close. It was only about fifteen feet from my face! This New World wood warbler is migratory wintering in Central and South America. Seems like there should be more to say about a little bird that's this flashy but that's really all there is to it. Now, I must conduct a thorough tick check as I think I feel something crawling on me inside my clothes. David is not home, so he is neither the source of the sensation nor the solution.

Thanks to David Allen Sibley, The Sibley Guide To Birds, Wikipedia and allaboutbirds.com for some of the information.

Shadblow And Alewives

 
     Amelanchier canadensis
The Service Berries are in bloom. The diaphanous shrubs almost look like puffs of smoke across the marshes and meadows. Indigenous to North America, the small trees are not only lovely, but important to wildlife for the fruit they bear. I just planted one for a gardening customer at the bottom of their serene meadow. It’s in a perfect setting where the soil is consistently moist and the flowers will be back lit by the evening’s setting sun. It has plenty of space to send out suckers and make a clump which it prefers to do. Maybe I’ll talk to them about putting in some ferns around it’s legs. It’s also fiddlehead season, so it seems like an appropriate combination; they like the same conditions. The tight fisted crosiers of Ostrich ferns are a traditional Maine spring food. Like the flowers of the Service Berries, they are only around briefly before they unfurl and aren’t edible any longer. It has been a record breaking warm spring making us tend to forget that often at this time of year, there is still frost in the ground in the deep woods and in Aroostook County - “The Crown” of Maine. ‘Service Berries’ were given the name because their bloom coincides with when the ground has thawed and can reliably be dug to inter those who died when it was still frozen. When the Service Berries bloom, winter is over. They are also called Shadbush and Shadblow because they bloom when the shad or Alewives run. ‘Blow’ is an old fashioned word meaning full bloom. The Alewives have just started to run. When I was young, my father took me up the coast from here to Damariscotta Mills to see them. Alewives are a type of herring that lives out at sea, but travels up freshwater rivers to breed and spawn. Damariscotta Mills is narrow so thousands of the fish can be seen clearly from the shore. The Osprey, gulls and eagles go crazy feeding. At night, the raccoons come around for the dead ones that line the shore. For many of us, like eating fiddleheads, it’s a spring ritual to go there to see the fish and birds. I remember kneeling down and putting my hands in the water to feel them when I was a kid. The water was so thick with them you could literally grab them with nothing more than your hand. So many people go there now that there is a parking lot and traffic jams. When I was a kid, though, my father and I had to climb down the banking through the bushes risking poison ivy and a slip and fall on wet rocks. We could hear the water and feel the cool mist from the little falls above the pools of fish before we came through the bushes. It was thrilling!  Alewives are caught en masse by netting. Today they are used mostly as bait fish for lobster trapping. When eaten, they are usually smoked, though I’m told they have a very mild flavor. Traditionally, a little vinegar is served with them which is true of fiddleheads, too. I can only imagine, back in the days of our settlers in the late 1600s and early 1700s, how thankful folks must have been after surviving winter to have fresh fiddleheads, bountiful fishes and to be able to bury their dead. They must have wept when the Shadbush bloomed.


                                                                    

Technorati Tags: Robin Robinson photography, Maine, fiddleheads, Ostrich ferns ,alewives, shad, shadblow, Service berry