#7 Shrike

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Loggerhead shrike. Photo wiki commons

My Favorite Nature Moments of 2013.

Study the above photo closely. Commit it to memory. Notice the intense stare, the black Zorro mask, the thorny branch the bird is perched on. Confident. Cocky. This is the mugshot of a cold-blooded serial killer; a songbird that thinks it's a raptor.

Eliot Shearwater turned Parulidae and I set out last February to find the loggerhead shrike that had been reported in New Market, much to the terror of the shrews that lived near the road. We didn't find the predator, but from the grisly evidence discovered, we didn't need the folks from CSI to know we were in the right place. 

For more from the crime scene, click: Shrikeless in February.

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