Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
Lanius ludovicianus migrans.
Bethel, Maine.
1903
June 5
(3) started her from this morning. I looked this tree over carefully
afterwards but could not see anything in it that resembled a nest.
Probably the bird really went on beyond it to another tree.
Both Shrikes spent the greater part of the time when I was
watching them within an area of about twenty acres. Most of this
was perfectly open, intervale grass fields the only trees being
those in the long row of planted, sidewalk sugar maples and a few
scrubby willows, wild cherries, etc., scattered along the lines of
the fences that divided the fields from one another. The Shrikes
occasionally perched on some of these trees but their favorite
points of observation were the fence and telegraph posts. In a
general way they looked and behaved like Northern Shrikes but they
appeared smaller and decidedly shorter and stouter while they were
somewhat less active and restless. Their heads looked disproport-
tionately larger and much thicker and heavier than those of their
more northern relatives. The female was a dark, dull-colored bird,
the male much lighter with very white underparts and a clear ashy-
blue back. The broad black stripe through and about the eye was
conspicuous with both of them.
When perched they sat quite motionless save for a slow turn-
ing of the head from side to side. I did not once see either of
them lift and half spread the tail as the Northern Shrike so often
does. Their method of flight, however, was identical with that of