A first (1 Viewer)

In my 40 years of casual birding here in Northwestern Ontario Canada I have never seen a Northern Shrike....until today and it was literally in my back yard.

I was outside and I noticed a kind of twittering song nearby and the only bird I could see was about 30m away, 10m up an aspen tree. I grabbed my binoculars and sure enough a shrike! Pretty stoked to watch him for around 15 minutes until my hands got a bit cold so I went inside to watch out my front window and what does this bird do? It flies right down and lands in a cedar not 2m from my window! I think he's still in there but it's pretty thick and I cant see him. He might be stalking some small birds or mice since there is a feeder right beside the tree.

Made my day!!

I'm happy for you Terry...it's wonderful when we have days like this

Thanks Annabeth! Kind of silly how excited a 51 year old, motorcycle riding contractor can get over a silly little bird isn't it? lol. My friends and family have NO idea!

It does indeed appear the Shrike has made a kill in my little cedar tree and has wedged whatever it is in a crotch or impaled it and was happily feeding on it when my neighbor scared it and it flew right back into the big aspen! Waiting to see if he'll come back to finish his meal.

Oh how wonderful for you Terry. Doesn't come much better than a Lifer in your own patch does it.

Now he's found himself a feeding station, you'll be in for an interesting time, I think.

delia todd said:

Oh how wonderful for you Terry. Doesn't come much better than a Lifer in your own patch does it.

Now he's found himself a feeding station, you'll be in for an interesting time, I think.

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Thanks! yeah it's pretty cool. I not only saw the bird for the first time, I was able to witness it fly in, feed on it's kill and just now it was back to finish and it was clearly visible trying to wedge a small bird leg into a branch crotch so it could eat the tissue attached.

Nice to have him around but I hope he doesn't eat all my Chickadees! Plenty of house sparrows to go around! lol

Just read your posts. Sounds a series of great birding moments - do you have any pics? I've only seen Great Grey and Red Backed, not being a New World birder... yet. They're all gorgeous little butchers!