Cool Critters: The cutest terror you’ll ever see – a northern shrike

Each year around Halloween, the northern shrike lands in our region to spend the winter. A songbird slightly smaller than a robin and covered in silvery-gray plumage, it sports a black tail and wings and a dainty eye mask. Perched atop trees and bushes, the bird is a charming sight against winter’s muted skies.

But beneath its wholesome exterior lies an avian assassin that leaves culinary horror in its wake.

Northern shrikes may be songbirds, but they don’t eat seeds or berries. Instead, they kill living things and eat them.

And while a number of bird species kill and eat their prey, shrikes take a unique approach to dining. Before eating, they skewer their prey like mouse kabobs.

No wonder it is nicknamed the “butcherbird.”

Of 33 shrike species worldwide, “only two, the loggerhead shrike and the northern shrike, are found in America,” according to the American Bird Conservancy. And it is the northern shrike that spends its winters in the northern Lower 48 states, including here in the Inland Northwest.

“They are typically more common in Eastern than Western Washington,” according to BirdWeb, the online guide to the birds of Washington state.

During summer, northern shrikes breed in Alaska and northern Canada, where they feed on insects. After flying “south” for the winter to our semi-open landscapes, they switch primarily to rodents and even – gulp – other birds.

Like a pint-sized raptor, the shrike hunts by watching from tree branches and soars down on prey. But unlike raptors, the northern shrike doesn’t have powerful wings and talons to make a kill. How then, does a 2-ounce bird deal a death blow to a mouse, vole or finch? Brace yourselves, because this is where nature takes a “Game of Thrones” turn.

In a 2018 study published in Biology Letters, scientists discovered that shrikes use their hooked beaks to grasp mice by the neck and then vigorously shake until the vertebrae snaps. Next, because a shrike’s feet are too dainty to hold a dead mouse while it eats, the bird skewers it to a branch thorn or barbed wire. Once the hanging corpse is secured, the shrike might tear into it right away or save the meal for later.

This, from a cute songbird that visits us several months a year. Oh, and the adorable bandit mask it wears? Scientists theorize it helps reduce the sun’s glare as the bird seeks its next meal.

So if you ever notice an insect, rodent or bird impaled on a sharp object, know that a northern shrike in a black mask is nearby, watching and waiting.