Taken in Douglas County. Photo by the Author.
THE SHRIKE’S PRESERVE.
The Shrike is a bird of prey but he is no restless prowler or hoverer, wearing out his wings with incessant flight—not he. Choosing rather a commanding position on a telegraph wire, or exposed bush top, he searches the ground with his eye until he detects some suspicious movement of insect, mouse, or bird. Then he dives down amongst the sage, and if successful returns to his post to devour at leisure. The bird does not remain long enough at one station to inspire a permanent dread in the local population of comestibles; but rather moves on from post to post at short intervals and in methodical fashion. In flight the bird moves either by successive plunges and noisy reascensions, or else pitches downward from his perch and wings rapidly over the surface of the vegetation.
The Sage Shrikes are prolific and attentive breeders. The first brood is brought off about the 1st of May, but fresh eggs may sometimes be found as early as the last week in March in the southern part of the State. A second brood may be expected from June 1st to 15th.
The nest is a bulky but usually well-built affair, placed habitually in a sage bush, or a greasewood clump, with wild clematis for third choice. The structure is designed for warmth and comfort, so that, whenever possible, to the thickened walls of plant fibers, cow-hair, or sheep’s wool, is added an inner lining of feathers, and these not infrequently curl over the edge so as completely to conceal the nest contents. One nest examined in Walla Walla County contained the following materials: Willow twigs, broom-sage twigs, sage bark, weed stems, dried yarrow leaves, dried sage leaves, hemp, wool, rabbit fur, horse-hair, cow-hair, chicken feathers, string, rags, and sand, besides a thick mat of finely comminuted scales, soft and shiny, the accumulated horny waste from the growing wing-quills of the crowded young—altogether a sad mess.
Taken in Douglas County. Photo by the Author.
NEST AND EGGS OF WHITE-RUMPED SHRIKE.
The parent birds are singularly indifferent as a rule to the welfare of a nest containing eggs alone. The female sits close, but once flushed, stands clinking in the distance, or else absents herself entirely. When the young are hatched, however, the old birds are capable of a spirited and deafening defense.
It is curious that in Washington we have seen no signs of the out-door larder, consisting of grasshoppers, mice, garter-snakes, etc., impaled on thorns, which the eastern birds of this species are usually careful to maintain somewhere in the vicinity of the nest. It may be simply that the lack of convenient thorns accounts for this absence, or for the failure of the habit.
Altho this bird belongs to a bad breed, one containing, among others, the notorious “Neuntöter,” or Ninekiller, of northern Europe, concerning which tradition maintains that it is never satisfied until it has made a kill of nine birds hand-running, the evidence seems to be overwhelmingly in its favor. Birds are found to constitute only eight per cent of this bird’s food thruout the year, while, on account of its services in ridding the land of undoubted vermin, its presence is to be considered highly beneficial.