The Butcher Bird
A dead crab impaled on barbed wire. Photo by Rodolfo Pineda Pérez CC BY-NC 4.0 Several Environmental Lands Management staff have stories of finding macabre little displays along sections of barbed wire security fencing. Daniel Ruben of Hillsborough County Conservation and Environmental Lands Management (CELM) describes finding scarab beetles and lizards impaled on barbed wire security fencing at Balm Boyette Scrub. Even songbirds and mice can be found stuck up in the thorns of specific trees. These grisly displays are not accidents or the work of disturbed individuals, but rather the victims of a most unassuming songbird: the butcherbird, aka, the loggerhead shrike ( Lanius ludovicianus ). Behold, the offending individual. Photo by Laura Wolf, CC BY 2.0 On the face of it, the loggerhead shrike looks much like any other songbird. A true passerine, they have small feet made for perching, measure only eight to nine inches in length, and possess the round and compact form we associate ...