I have been… IMPALED!
Greetings from the field in Napanee, Ontario! We are now halfway through the field season for the Eastern Loggerhead Shrike Recovery Program with things wrapping up at the end of August. If you have been following along since we began our field season in June, you will know that things got off to a bit of a late start this year. Nevertheless, once we were able to resume normal field activities things began to get busy quite quickly and since we started field work in June the shrikes have only kept us busier! To date there have been 11 nests found of which nine have successfully fledged young. There has also been a total of 23 adult loggerhead shrike that have been spotted during site surveys.
In addition to doing site surveys in suitable loggerhead shrike habitat, Wildlife Preservation Canada also performs habitat use transects in partnership with local solar farm companies. These surveys are done on sites where solar farms have been established in areas near loggerhead shrike habitat. The goal of these transects is to document how loggerhead shrike use solar infrastructure (fencing, solar panels, telephone poles etc.) and to document what impacts this may have.
Examples of solar farm sites where Wildlife Preservation does habitat use surveys in Napanee, Ontario.
Loggerhead shrike require open grassland habitat to hunt for prey such as insects, amphibians, and small reptiles, birds, and mammals. They are perch-and-wait predators requiring a variety of medium to low perches throughout their hunting territory to capture prey.
Loggerhead shrike, like most shrike species, are also infamously known for their use of large thorns, corners, and sharp branches to impale or wedge prey. This is done for two main reasons. The first purpose is to aid in consumption. Unlike birds of prey, loggerhead shrikes do not possess strong feet or talons, making it difficult to hold and tear prey apart with their beaks. By impaling food items on sharp objects, shrike stabilize their food so they can tear off pieces more easily. The second use is as a food store. Studies have shown that shrike impale prey as a way of stashing food for later use, especially in times where fresh prey items may not be readily available.
For these reasons, along with perches and open grassland habitat, loggerhead shrikes also require objects to impale prey sources on. Human infrastructure has proved to be quite useful for this task and shrike have been documented using things like fence posts and barbed wire fence both as hunting perches and structures to impale prey with.
So far this season during habitat use transects, loggerhead shrikes have been observed using solar farm fencing, solar panels, and telephone poles as perches to hunt for prey. But perhaps what has been most frequently documented is the use of barbed wire fence for impaling food items. Prey types that have been documented include insects including June bugs, beetle and moth species. A piece of dried micro-mammal skin was also found hanging off a fence barb at one of the solar farm sites. The shrike likely used the barbed wire as a stabilizer while it tore pieces of meat off and the piece of skin was all that remained of the shrike’s tasty meal.
An insect found impaled on barbed wire fencing with solar panels pictured in the background. Loggerhead shrike also often use fence wires as perches when hunting for small prey.
A June bug found impaled on the barbed wire fencing that surrounds one of the solar farm sites. The loggerhead shrike that caught this insect was likely storing it as a tasty snack for later.
Eliza-Jane Morin
Napanee Field Biologist – Eastern Loggerheaad Shrike Program
Eliza has been working in the field of avian conservation for over 5 years. Her work experiences have brought her from the Peruvian Amazon to the prairies of Southern Alberta. Most recently, she completed a master’s degree in Coastal and Marine Resource Management in Iceland.