Length -- 8.5 to 9 inches. A little smaller than the robin.
Male and Female -- Upper parts gray; narrow black line across
forehead, connecting small black patches on sides of head at
base of bill. Wings and tail black, plentifully marked with
white, the outer tail feathers often being entirely white and
conspicuous in flight. Underneath white or very light gray.
Bill hooked and hawk-like.
Range -- Eastern United States to the plains.
Migrations -- May. October. Summer resident.
It is not easy, even at a slight distance, to distinguish the loggerhead from
the Northern shrike. Both have the pernicious habit of killing insects and
smaller birds and impaling them on thorns; both have the peculiarity of
flying, with strong, vigorous flight and much wing-flapping, close along the
ground, then suddenly rising to a tree, on the lookout for prey. Their harsh,
unmusical call-notes are similar too, and their hawk-like method of dropping
suddenly upon a victim on the ground below is identical. Indeed, the same
description very nearly answers for both birds. But there is one very
important difference. While the Northern shrike is a winter visitor, the
loggerhead, being his Southern counterpart, does not arrive until after the
frost is out of the ground, and he can be sure of a truly warm welcome. A
lesser distiction between the only two representatives of the shrike family
that frequent our neighborhood -- and they are two too many -- is in the
smaller size of the loggerhead and its lighter-gray plumage. But as both these
birds select some high commanding position, like a distended branch near the
tree-top, a cupola, house-peak, lightning-rod, telegraph wire, or
weather-vane, the better to detect a passing dinner, it would be quite
impossible at such a distance to know which shrike was sitting up there
silently plotting villainies, without remembering the season when each may be
expected.