Northern Shrike - Moraine SP by Alex Lamoreaux on Nemesis Bird

17Dec/112

Northern Shrike – Moraine SP

Anna Fasoli, Gretchen Lasser, Delia Guzman, and I spent almost the entire day today searching Moraine State Park for the previously reported Black-headed Gull(s), without any success. Luckily there was a very beautiful adult Northern Shrike that I was able to see multiple times throughout the day in the same parking lot as where the gulls roosted. Below are two photos I took of the bird, unfortunately the heavy snow and very overcast conditions made for terrible photo conditions. Another nice addition to the day was a juvenile Trumpeter Swan that was floating with a huge collection of American Coots near where the gull roost was.

Northern Shrike - adult (Photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

Tundra Swan - juvenile (Photo by Anna Fasoli)

Trumpeter Swan - juvenile (Photo by Anna Fasoli)

Ring-billed Gull - adult (Photo by Anna Fasoli)

Ruddy Duck- juvenile/adult female (Photo by Anna Fasoli)

Filed under: Chase, General Info, Missed Birds, raptors, weather Leave a comment

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Marvant

Glad you were able to watch the adult No. Shrike at Moraine. Several of us have happily seen it perch, dive for a snack and just hang around. Steve Gosser has a few nice photos of it and in one it is carrying a small rodent possibly a mole, I have a poor to fair shot of it on the wires up from the beach with the tail or end of either small snake or very large worm in its beak…I think your photos are great, especially the second one!! Marge
Chris

Alex – i notice that in both Shrike photos, the bird is sitting on a diagonal branch…just like Anna suggested in Arizona. Any comment on that?

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