New Yard Bird
All of the activity at my feeders has attracted the attention of a Northern Shrike, much to the dismay of the local (and vocal) Blue Jays. Each winter I usually see one Northern Shrike hunting around the feeders and this year will apparently follow suit. Claire
December 7th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Like you, we usually have some predatory birds visiting our feeders, but on a pretty irregular basis. Usually during the winter we’ll end up seeing at least one Northern Shrike, Cooper’s Hawk, Sharp-shinned Hawk or Goshawk. But so far this year, we’ve not seen any of the above (not to say that they haven’t been here unaware to us).
I know there are some (including CBC members) who are upset by these predatory visitors when they start taking some of their favorite birds (like cardinals) and while I’d hate to lose the single cardinal that sometimes visits our feeder, I’m still thrilled by the appearance of one of these raptors . . and these prey species birds seem to be holding their own just fine.
Greg