Summary
- Natural history: Nicknamed the butcher bird, the Loggerhead Shrike is a songbird that hunts like a raptor, impaling or wedging mice, small snakes, and large insects onto the same thorny perches it chooses to protect its nest. The species was never more than a marginal breeder in Vermont, and its numbers likely peaked in the early 1900s when abandoned hill farms grew into the weedy, shrubby pastures it favors, a habitat that has itself since reverted to forest. Vermont’s population had already collapsed by the time of the First Atlas, its last strongholds concentrated around the Champlain Valley’s Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area, and no shrikes at all turned up during the Second Atlas, mirroring a range-wide decline that has outpaced the loss of the species’ habitat.
- Status in VT: Decreased by 31% (39 to 27 blocks). Greatest decrease in Southern Vermont Piedmont.
- Data from other research: No additional data for VT.
- Conservation status: State rank S4B
- Other atlases: NY: -13%; ON: 46%
- VT’s role in North American range: VT is at the southeastern edge of the range.
- Causes of change since first Atlas: Maturation of forests bordering streamside willow thickets (?).
- Management/Monitoring recommendations: Protect local populations by maintaining their habitat in an early successional state.
First Vermont Breeding Bird Atlas (1976-1981)
Second Vermont Breeding Bird Atlas (2003 – 2007)
Change in Distribution
