Butcher Bird

As a kid in school I remember reading Wallace Stegner's short story Butcher Bird. I really believe it was the first story that affected me so strongly that it kept me awake for several nights thinking about it.

Last year I happened to be in the car driving somewhere I can't remember, but I do recall it was a multi-hour trip. I had on NPR and the program was short stories. They read Butcher Bird - the first time I had heard it in about 40 years - and just like that I was transported back to the same sense of dread and deep emotion of decades earlier.

In reality, the bird that is commonly called a butcher bird in this part of the world, the loggerhead shrike, is a small creature, easily overlooked. It is hard to believe this beautiful black and white specimen pictured above is such a cruel and efficient hunter. The habit that earns them their nickname is that of catching insects and small reptiles or rodents and impaling them on thorns or barb wire fences so they can butcher them into smaller, more easily managed pieces.

We seem to have a pair of these guys hanging around this summer. As seen a few days ago they are not  afraid to take on the golden eagle, a bird almost one hundred times their size and weight!