(_Lanius ludovicianus_) Shrike family
_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 distinction 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.