#2941 "Northern Shrike Thicket"

#2941 "Northern Shrike Thicket" 
16x20 inches oils on stretched canvas
Started April 16th, 2025

This is another image taken by my friend, John Verburg, a naturalist and terrific photographer. John provides a tremendous source of inspiration during the winter when the wind chill encourages me to stay within the Singleton Studio. This thicket reminded me of the one occupied by the brilliant male cardinal in #2925 "Winter Male Cardinal in the Forest". 

This is the second painting of the striking songbird, the first being #2842 "Northern Shrike". Shrikes are sometimes easy to identify even from a distance as they perch at the very top of an isolated tree in a field setting, scouting for a meal. 

Loggerhead Shrikes have a thicker black mask than Northern Shrikes that often extends over the eye and above the bill. They have cleaner white underparts without the fine barring of Northern Shrikes. 

The burly, bull-headed Northern Shrike is a pint-sized predator of birds, small mammals, and insects. A bold black "Zoro" mask and stout, hooked bill heighten the impression of danger in these fierce predators. They breed in far northern North America and come as far south as the northern U.S. for winter. They hunt in brushy, semiopen habitats, chasing after birds, creeping through dense brush to ambush prey, or pouncing on mice. They often save food for later by impaling it on thorns or barbed wire.

Shrikes are rare among songbirds because of their lifestyle of hunting and eating animals. They often kill more prey than they need at one time, but they don't let it go to waste. They often store food for later by impaling their prey on spines or barbed wire, earning the nickname "butcher birds."

• Shrikes have a toothlike spike on either side of the upper bill and a corresponding notch on either side of the lower mandible. Known as a "tomial tooth," this feature allows them to kill prey with a quick bite to the neck.
• Northern Shrikes are stealthy hunters. They skulk through dense brush, patiently watch mouse holes and pathways, and monitor nests of other birds carefully to determine the best time to raid them.
• The nest of the Northern Shrike is an open cup, but it is so deep that while incubating, the female is completely out of view except for the tip of her tail.
• Both male and female Northern Shrikes sing throughout the year. The male sings especially in late winter and early spring. Their songs sometimes include imitations of other species.

There was an Environment Canada pamphlet produced during the era of cuts and program reviews in the 1990s. A Northern Shrike was featured prominently on the cover. The draconian directors and managers probably never realized that the "butcher bird" was certainly the artist's editorial comment on what was transpiring within the public service. My science profession and those of many others were on the cutting block at least three times. The 1990s were a time of cuts at all levels of science. Just when the efforts to address global warming and unsustainable extraction should have been escalating. The brief window of opportunity for meaningful steps was still open, but the cuts to science were brutal. The superficial and ineffective actions applied to reduce fossil fuels did not match the heroic, political rhetoric.

The Harper War on science and knowledge was especially brutal. A March 19, 2014 article bannered as "Echoes of Walkerton in Environment Canada cuts" follows with "Health and safety of Canadians is at risk with latest slashing of Environment Canada budget." An interesting quote from that article follows. 

"Albert Einstein's well-known definition of insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" is unsettlingly relevant to a new round of federal government cuts. The latest slashing of Environment Canada, which by 2016 will have half the budget it had in 2007, calls to mind a series of deep cuts to environmental protections in Ontario in the late 1990s. Some of the players are even the same, so they cannot reasonably claim to be ignorant of the tragic consequences. Both at the provincial and federal levels. Not much has changed."

See https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/echoes-of-walkerton-in-environment-canada-cuts/article_cfe9d42a-3330-5af7-b95e-fddd03092f16.html for the full article.

The cost of these actions is becoming painfully clear in both the climate and the weather, not to mention the Sixth Mass Extinction. Shame...

According to the Christmas Bird Count, Northern Shrike populations have generally declined, particularly since the early 1970s. While some Northern Shrikes remain year-round on their breeding grounds, most migrate to southern Canada and the United States for the winter. Data suggests an almost 30% decrease in the population since the early 1970s. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick