Shrike Hawking

I'm back from many weeks of being gone ..... filling my sketchbook along the way, but taking a sabbitical from posting.

I sketched this loggerhead shrike in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Spring was slow in coming, but he (?) found a sunny slope that was alive with insects. We stayed the rest of the afternoon watching him catch one after another. I even saw him cough up a pellet, just as owls do. His was much smaller ... probably full of insect legs and other hard parts.

The shrike sat in the lone bush growning next to a small pond. Time and time again he flew out to catch an insect midair ... then he'd return to his perch. Occassionaly he'd move over to a large boulder to 'hawk' from. The next day he was gone, probably continuing on his way to his breeding grounds.