on my property i have a few nesting pairs of loggerhead shrikes and numerous swallows that nest in mud nest in the barn. the shrikes look like tiny mockingbirds with a mask over their eyes and they have a slightly curved down beak for ripping flesh. they catch the swallows on the fly and hang them on the barbed wire fence or thorns of osage orange trees or black locust, eat their heads off and leave the carcass for a couple of days and come back for more. there is lots of research on this bird for some reason, they are kind of endangered. they usually have 2-4 babies and are quite vulnrerable to predation themselves by cats and other birds. they also do the same thing with lizards and stink bugs. the stink bugs they stab them in the back in the thorax EVERY time. i've never seen them eat the beetles. they just seem to have fun killing. they fly low and straight and perform intercepts rather than erratic flight to catch. they have short wings, flap a lot per second so they can carry almost their body weight. totally awesome bird. the picture i posted is the best one i have ever seen about them hanging prey and i took it! since i have red-legged frogs, tiger salamander and fairy shrimp on my property, in addition to the shrikes, and sometimes kit foxes, that someday the environmentalists will come in and "protect" my property. It's amazing how simple it is to protect wild animals with a little diversity and shelter. got bush bunnies, jack rabbits, and of course gophers, squirrels, the occasional golden eagle flys overhead and comes down if something is interesting. they are awesome and really irridescent. also have a native short tailed mouse which is endangered as well as native ants which our native horny toads only eat because they won't eat the argintine ants and are starving to death. there is an ant researcher at stanford who has a really neat book about ants and what they eat and how you can attract them which sounds weird. we also have velvet ants that come in three colors, orange, red and yellow. we have lots of flycatcher's though not near as beautiful as the scissor tailed fly catcher, which is the state bird of Oklahoma. that bird is so awesome how it catches flies. and we also have bluebirds, purple martins. ok too much.
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/er/factsheets/birds/shrike.htm
))I cann't take it anymore what is that a picture of Kanabe?
