Tag Archives: northern shrike

Spirit Bird

Posted on by
2
Northern Shrike
Chignik Lake, August 15, 2018

My favorite fish is the Coho Salmon. I am absolutely fascinated by Lady’s Slipper Orchids. It’s difficult to name a “favorite” anything, and as I reflect on the matter it becomes apparent that it might be even more difficult to explain Why a given something is a favorite. The phrase “an integral part of the journey” flashes in my mind. The species in the above photo is the reason I became a serious birder and threw myself into photography. Oncorhynchus, Cypropedium, Lanius…

What is it in your life that has pulled you into travel, adventure, personal growth, new understandings?
JD

Autumn Shrike

Posted on by
Reply
Photograph of a Northern Shrike in flight as it settles onto a roost of autumn-brown Dwarf Birch.
Autumn Shrike – Northern Shrike burdock gone to rust and seed, Chignik Lake, 9/10/17
The brownish color of this shrike indicates a first-year bird. Mature adults are more gray, and the black eye mask is sharply defined and really pops. At The Lake, Northern Shrikes are typically arrive in late summer and remain common through fall with occasional specimens remaining into winter.

Spirit Bird – Northern Shrike: Chignik Lake Files #4

Posted on by
2

Spirit Bird – The day we arrived at The Lake, I heard the cry of a bird unlike I had ever heard. I’m not sure how I knew, but I knew. Shrike. I looked up to where it was perched on a utility wire. “Uncommon to rare,” according to Sibley. At the time I didn’t know much about photography or birds, but in that moment I understood that I was in a special place and that there was work before me. And so I ordered a new field guide and a copy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Handbook of Bird Biology (716 pages, more a tome than a handbook), acquired a long lens, and began. 8/27/16