Richard Wark, age 9, of Albany, New York, for his question:
Is there really a butcher bird?
The catbird can mew like a cat a kid the weaverbird weaves an elaborate nest of fine threads. If there is a real butcherbird, you might expect to find him running a meat market, maybe carving up pork chops and grinding beef into pat¬ties of hamburger.
Yes, there is a butcherbird, but of course, you won't find him in your meat mar¬ket. However, he is a meat eater. He gets his strange name because he catches and serves his meat in a very heartless fashion. He is a chunky bird, maybe as big or somewhat bigger then a robin. His colors are soft gray and black. When flying he seems to swoop through the air in bounding leaps.
The bill of the butcherbird is remarkable. It is a very strong bill with a sharp curved hook. On a small scale, it is like the beaks owned by owls, hawks, and eagles. These fellows are fierce birds of prey. They capture and carve up their victims with their powerful hooked beaks and taloned claws. The butcherbird has the beak of a bird of prey, but instead of talons, he has dainty little feet made for perching. Never¬theless, he is a bird of prey, and he has his own way of capturing his prey without the help of clutching claws.
The buteherbird often dines for weeks on grasshoppers and beetles. But sooner or later he goes hunting for mice, for birds and for other red meat. He may perch in a bush, waiting for a mouse to scurry by below. Then he pounces and grabs his victim in his hooked bill. Or he may chase a small bird through the bushes, on and on until his victim grows too tired to move. Then the butcherbird grabs with his beak.
Owls and hawks and larger birds of prey use their talons as knives and forks to carve up their meat. The butcherbird cannot do this. So he hangs his victim on a spike, perhaps on the thorn of a bush, perhaps on a sharp prong of a barbed wire fence. If he is not very hungry, he leaves his victim and comes back later to dine. As as a rule, he has a favorite fence or bush where he keeps his meat. When mice, rats and small birds are very plentiful, there may be a dozen or more victims hanging on spikes in the butcherbird's private meat market.
True, the butcherbird does not sound like a very attractive character. We detest him for killing the sweet songbirds. But he also preys upon rodents and rids the world of many pesky rats and mice. And he is a very good parent. The nest is woven neatly from strips of bark and twigs and cozily lined with soft grasses. The eggs are dull white and freckled with brown. When they hatch, both parents work hard to feed their three, four, or five hungry butcherbird chicks.
The butcherbird is also called the shrike and he has more than 70 shrike relatives living in different parts of the world. His Australian cousins are black or black and white. Some of the African shrikes are brightly colored birds. Two members of the shrike family nest in North America.