Professor Ansted includes the Red-backed Shrike in his list, and marks it only as occurring in Guernsey.
The Red-backed Shrike may be considered a tolerably regular, but not very common, summer visitant to the Channel Islands.
An executioner by birth, the Shrike or "Butcher Bird" evidently pursues his calling with no regrets and when spring time approaches adds his voice to the chorus of bird song.
October will bring the Horned Lark, Pine Finch, Snow Bunting, Tree Sparrow and Northern Shrike and these birds with the ones just mentioned, and the ever faithful Permanent Residents, give us a goodly winter company.
A gray bird with black wings and tail marked with white which shows in flight; smaller than the Northern Shrike with a black forehead and unmarked breast.
The Migrant Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus migrans) is a northern race of the Loggerhead from which it differs only in being somewhat paler above and grayer below.
Well, Tom Titmouse naturally thought the shrike had eaten Nancy's eggs, so he came to me and ordered me to arrest the robber.
I hoped you would accuse the shrike of the murder, and kill him to satisfy my vengeance.
Tom Titmouse accused the shrike of murder, and so did Nancy, who had nearly cried her eyes out.
Not an egg was left to them out of the six, and while Nancy wept and wailed Tom looked sharply around him and saw a solitary shrike sitting on a limb not far away.
Either she or Tom was always at home, and for my part I watched the shrike carefully and found he did not fly near the nest of the titmice at all.
The crow family is known to be treacherous, and the shrike is rightly called the 'butcher-bird,' but there are many others that we have reason to suspect feed upon their own race.
But the shrike pleaded his innocence, and I had no proof against him.
At this all the birds set up an excited chatter, and the shrike again screamed that he was innocent.
The Loggerhead Shrike and nest shown in this number were taken under the direction of Mr. F.
The offender he finds to be the Shrike of the northern United States, most properly named the Butcher Bird.
It is well they are not plentiful, or else our canary pets would be in danger, for a shrike will dart through an open window and attack birds in cages, even when members of the family are present.
A moment later the shrike will be seen among them, causing no alarm, for his appearance is in his favor.
The nest is as perplexing as are the eggs; for the nest is that of a Bulbul, the eggs those of a Shrike or Minivet.
From four to six eggs are laid, and in regard to this Shrike I have had no reason to think that it rears more than one brood in the year.
My friend Mr. Benjamin Aitken furnishes me with the following interesting note:--"You say that the Indian Grey Shrike lays from February to July.
The under centre one, an old Shrike nest (the other three were of other birds), was occupied by a Shrike sitting on five eggs.
This I know, that from March to August there is never a Rufous-backed Shrike in Bombay.
The Common Wood-Shrike lays during the latter half of March and April.
Hemp, old rags, and thorny twigs are freely used in the formation of the outer portion of the nest, but the Shrike shows a decided predilection for the former.
The Indian Grey Shrike lays from January to August, and occasionally up to October, but the majority of my eggs have been obtained during March or April.
And he further notes:--"The Bay-backed Shrike breeds in the neighbourhood of Deesa at the end of the hot weather.
This pretty little Cuckoo-Shrike is one of the earliest migrants in the rains, arriving about the 8th of June, and breeding all along the scrub-jungles which stretch between the Nasik and Khandeish Collectorates.
The White-rumped Swallow-Shrike breeds, we know, in the Andamans and Great Cocos, and that is nearly all we do know.
More contemptible than the actual slaughter of its victims, if possible, is the method by which the shrike often lures and sneaks upon his prey.
A lesser distinction between the only two representatives of the shrike family that frequent our neighborhood--and they are two too many--is in the smaller size of the loggerhead and its lighter-gray plumage.
While the Northern shrike is a winter visitor, the loggerhead, being his Southern counterpart, does not arrive until after the frost is out of the ground, and he can be sure of a truly warm welcome.
It is no argument against this theory, that the shrike sometimes leaves these stores without returning to them.
Thus does the Shrike manage when hard up for his favourite materials: keeping to the same botanical family, he is able to find and employ substitutes among the fine cotton-clad stalks.
Save in a few cases, therefore, the Shrike does not collect the dead and withered remains: it is from the growing plants that he reaps his harvest, mowing them down with his beak and leaving the sheaves to dry in the sun before using them.
East of the willows, and separated from them by the dark green mallows and bright yellow California forget-me-nots, was the sycamore where the shrike was driven off by the blackbirds.
Some finches flew overhead as if meaning to stop, but saw the shrike and went on.
While I was watching the firstshrike family, Canello had two scares.
One day a shrike darted down from a hedge just before me, not a yard in front, and dashed a dandelion to the ground.
The sharp relentless shrike that used to live by the copse moved up here, and from that very hornbeam perpetually darted across the road upon insects in the fern and furze opposite.
Fortunately the shrike is rare with us; one seldom finds his nest, with poor Chickadee impaled on a sharp thorn near by, surrounded by a varied lot of ugly beetles.
The shrike is his worst enemy, the swift swoop of his cruel beak being always fatal in a flock of chickadees.
Not one of these birds was visible, nor was the fluty-voiced shrike thrush, which answers every strange call and mimics crude attempts to reproduce its varied notes.
For at least half an hour the old mill was forgotten, while I chased the grackle about, as he flew hither and thither, sometimes with a loggerhead shrike in furious pursuit.
When I tired of chasing the grackle, or the shrike had driven him away (I do not remember now how the matter ended), I started again toward the old sugar mill.
Red-backed shrike was her name, female was her sex, and from Africa had she come.
Mrs. Blackie very nearly had a fit on the spot, and the shrike judged that the time had about arrived for her to quit that vicinity.
We always answer at random and say it's a wagtail or a flowering shrike or a female magnolia.
The other day Titania sent me out to put up a new clothesline; I found that a shrike or a barn swallow or some other veery had built a nest in the clothespin basket.
The Pearson street shrike one day rounded the corner of the building on its way to its favorite perch, and encountering a sparrow midway struck it down in full flight.
I once saw a goldfinch in winter plumage escape a Great Northern Shrike by taking a flight directly at the zenith.
No one ever saw the placidity of the shrike disturbed in the least.
As far as my own observation goes the Great Northern Shrike in winter does not put very much food in cold storage.
The locality abounded in sparrows and it was for that reason the shrike was such a constant visitor.
The shrike followed the dainty little tidbit far up, until the larger bird was only a speck and the little one had disappeared entirely.
If he gets a small bird well started out into the open and with cover at a long distance ahead, the shrike generally manages to overtake and overpower his victim.
For those unfamiliar with the subject it may be best to say that in the winter season the shrike is abundant in the parks of the great smoky city by the lake, and not infrequently it invades the pulsing business heart of the town.
The Great Northern Shrike has the habit of impaling the bodies of its victims upon thorns or of hanging them by the neck in the crotch of two small limbs.
The shrike carried its struggling victim to the usual tree.
In taking its perch the shrike flies until one gets the impression that it is to light in the very heart of the tree.
They apparently knew that; the shrike could not strike them down because of the intervening branches.
In general appearance at some little distance the shrike is not unlike a mocking bird.
For four years in succession I saw my first Northern Shrike of the season on November first, a day set down in the Church Calendar for the commemoration of "All Saints.
As the shrike points, and the wild hawk is coming up, the falconer works with a will by the two strings A and B at the pole-hawk and the pole-pigeon.
Snatching the turf shutter from the little window behind him, he takes a look through his field-glass in the direction to which the shrike is pointing, searching for the coming hawk as an astronomer does for a lost star.
But as soon as the passager is nearly overhead, and the shrike has hidden himself, it is time to let loose the pole strings and let the very live lures attached to it also bolt into shelter.
The shrike had greatly annoyed him; it had been hanging about for some time, he told me, dashing at the linnets and driving them off when they flew down to the nets.
Because of his cruelty, you know, the Shrike is often called Mr. Butcher Bird.
Chairman Eagle explained the purpose of their meeting and Mr. Shrike promised to hurt no one.
Just then a Northern Shrike alighted in their midst.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "shrike" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
