Last December, as I was crossing the yard at the nature center, I heard an unusual bird song. It came from a small songbird perched near the top of an ash tree west of the barn, overlooking a brushy ...

Like eagles and falcons, shrikes are birds of prey. However, they aren’t raptors, but are songbirds. Though shrikes have a sharp, hooked beak, they are small and have weak legs. The little shrike ...

In every winter, it seems, we are visited by a hunter from the Far North, a solitary figure wrapped in gray passing over the landscape capturing small prey and moving on. The snowy owl is such a ...

Q. I heard a bird hit our picture window, which is a rare occurrence, since our feeders are close to the house. Looking out, I saw a grayish bird about blue jay size — it had a black stripe through ...

Years ago, on one particular winter walk here at the nature center, we were concentrating on birds. We saw many of the "usual suspects" - chickadees, mourning doves, crows, plus a great horned owl and ...

To us “civilized” mammals, some animal behavior can sometimes be construed as downright gruesome. There are behaviors that have been observed by animals in which even the most avid naturalist has been ...

Don’t let their small size fool you – shrikes are some of the most ruthless hunters in the bird world. In this video, we explore the fascinating and brutal behavior of shrikes impaling their prey on ...

On Wednesday last week, a killer came into my yard. It was a northern shrike. Sometimes called "the butcher bird," the shrike preys on small birds and mammals. These it impales on thorns or wires, ...