Butcher Bird

Butcher Bird
Related Category: Vertebrate Zoology
see shrike.
More on Butcher Bird
Shrike - or butcher bird, predatory songbird found in most parts of the world except Australia and South America.

Family: Laniidae - Shrikes, aka "Butcher birds". (Lanius from the Latin word lanio, "to butcher". (Holloway). There are 100+ species of "shrikes", if you include Bushshrikes and Helmetshrikes (Humann, in Sibley Guide).

Some shrikes are also known as "butcher birds" because of their habit of keeping corpses. Australasian butcherbirds are not shrikes, although they occupy a similar ecological niche.

Like all shrikes, the Northern Shrike is also known as the 'butcher bird' because of its unusual practice of impaling prey on thorns or barbed wire, much in the way butchers hang meat in their shops.

Gray Butcherbird Cracticus torquatus
Described by: Latham (1801)
Alternate common name(s): Grey Butcherbird, Silver-backed Butcherbird, Grey Butcher Bird, Gray Butcher Bird
Old scientific name(s): None known by website authors ...

Lacking the talons of raptors, it stuns or kills flying birds with a blow from its powerful beak; often caches prey by impaling on plant spine or barbed wire -- leading to the common name "butcher bird." Strong male fidelity to breeding territory.

Its principal food is large insects; it also takes lizards and small birds. Known in many parts as the "Butcher Bird," it impales its prey on thorns or barbed wire before eating it, because it does not have the talons of the larger birds of prey.

Returning to a hawthorn or similar bush, they impale their meal on one of the thorns. They can then strip their meal as they feed. Thus, the name "butcher bird." ...

This habit, unique among North American birds, has earned them in nickname, "butcher birds." They do this mainly to anchor their food in order to tear it apart but may also store food in this way for later use.

tanagers, swallow tanager, bananaquit, New World warblers, Hawaiian honeycreepers, vireos, New World blackbirds, finches, Estrildid finches, weavers, starlings, Old World orioles, drongos, wattlebirds, magpie-larks, wood swallows, butcher birds, ...

See also: Shrike, Loggerhead, Loggerhead Shrike, Perch, Tanager