Tuesday 8 March 2011

The Butcher Bird


What a cute birdy. A bit round so probably the funny one, or the faithful sidekick all sat calmly on his little stick. But this my friends - this is the butcher bird!
No joke, this is the Shrike. They love their kids and are wonderfully faithful. They have a very low carbon footprint and by preference like Woody Allen movies. They don’t approve of horror movies and as they can flock can undertake quite fearsome letter writing campaigns. It was Shrikes that saw Firefly taken off the air. Which for some of you gives you a hint as to their true nature because whilst many birds eat small grubs, little voles and even mice only the Shrike has a larder. Shrikes like to hang about on thorn bushes so that they can impale their still living prey in order to eat them live, in bits. Or if they’re full add them to their bloody-thorn-bush cache in case they get hungry later. Or just to add to their collection. Or just because.
Shrikes are rarely dangerous to larger animals such as dogs or even people. Cats know better frankly as cats can smell anything in a gang at twenty yards. Only of late are people suspected to have been attacked, but the only evidence linking Shrikes to the otherwise simply missing victims are the increasing number of MacBooks found speared on tree branches in recent months.

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