Comments on: A Piece Of Rail

By: Jinny

Jinny — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:41:06 +0000

Hello,
Can i get a one small pic from your site?
Jinny

By: Pat O'Donnell

Pat O'Donnell — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:47:00 +0000

Poor thing. I wonder if anyone has studied the effects of barbed wire fences on bird populations.

By: Birdchick

Birdchick — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:39:00 +0000

Birds do get caught on barbed wire fences. Just do a google image search.

By: cyberthrush

cyberthrush — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:28:17 +0000

geee, nice li’l mystery! hard to imagine a bird getting permanently stuck on barbed wire just by flying into it; just looking at the pics didn’t really strike me as either VA. or Sora Rail, and the black legs are certainly confusing, but maybe in-hand it’s more clearcut; be curious if any other suggestions arise.

By: RuthieJ

RuthieJ — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:15:15 +0000

I wish my personal economical belt wasn’t so darn tight–I would have loved to go back to ND for the festival again this year. Thanks for sharing the sights and sounds with us Sharon!

By: Holly

Holly — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:44:32 +0000

with a catch that large, a shrike probably wouldn’t need a whole cache! I once found the head of a large grasshopper (a little bit larger than a marble) on a barbed wire fence. No other sign of a cache, but I was fairly certain it was a shrike and not, say, a warning from the godfather of the bug world.

By: Birdchick

Birdchick — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:13:31 +0000

holly

When I put stuff up that I think isn’t that graphic, I get complaints, so I try to err on the side of caution. I’m with you on this one.

kirk

Wow, glad you were there for that second blue jay!

laura

That is a GREAT question, and I certainly don’t know all there is to know about birds.

Shrike never entered my mind because there was only one bird or animal on the fence and when I have found shrike caches in the past, they usually have all sorts of bits and piece on the barbs, not just one body.

But I suppose shrike should not be out of the question and this got me thinking…how much does a shrike weigh in compared to a rail? For me, rails have always seemed heavy, however, the few opportunities that I have had to have a sora or Virginia rail in the hand, they are MUCH smaller than you would expect.

So, I decided to check what the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has to say and according to Cornell’s All About Birds, here are some weights:

Northern Shrike – 56–79 g
Sora – 49–112 g
Virginia Rail – 65–95 g

I just checked Cornell’s Birds of North America Online and it does say that northern shrikes can carry prey in flight equal to and exceeding own body weight, so this rail being a shrike kill is not out of the realm of possibility.

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:49:07 +0000

(Let me preface the following question with, you know 1,000 times more stuff about birds than I):
I thought Loggerhead Shrikes impaled their prey on pointy things like barbwire. Are there shrikes where you were?

By: Kirk

Kirk — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:22:18 +0000

I had a blue jay get stuck between 2 slats of a pickets fence. When I found him, his head was apart from his body. The second time it happened, I saw it and rescued the guy.
The toes on your bird do look a bit dried out, so that would make identifying more difficult.

By: Holly

Holly — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:36:38 +0000

I was expecting something far more graphic than that! But then, maybe I’m desensitized, having had to irrigate and medicate my poor little bunny’s gaping face wounds nightly for the past three weeks with no end in sight. I don’t suppose it could have been a mutant shrike that impaled it there?