The bird looked over its shoulder and back at me. His black eye sent an arrow right into my chest, and I shivered. It was as if he was checking me out, assessing whether he could take me or how much of a fight I might put up. The wind twisted his tail back and forth, and the acacia branch waved, but his glare was pinpoint. This Gray-backed Fiscal is in the Shrike family.
This family is the passerine order’s response to evolving into a raptor. They lack the talons of hawks, eagles, and falcons but are nonetheless voracious predators, taking insects, frogs, small birds, and mice. Lacking the talons to hold things, they will impale their prey on a thorn. They have gotten the name “butcherbird” for this behavior. Sometimes, they will build a larder of stored prey items on thorns, returning to eat them later. The word “fiscal” comes from honoring the taxman, and I guess how this bird captures other creatures.
The fiscal shifted to look across the savannah, searching for its next meal. We have two species of shrikes in Washington state. The Loggerheaded Shrike comes north into the sagebrush country in the summer, and the Northern Shrike flies down from Canada to spend the winter with us. On summer trips to Eastern Washington, we search for a Loggerhead on the top of a large sagebrush, and in winter, a Northern Shrike is a good find; people often hope we might find one on trips to the Skagit.
The family has 34 species, and 32 of them are in the genus Lanus. This genus includes this fiscal and our two shrikes in North America. They all have the same body shape and are generally some version of gray, black, and white. Sometimes, they have the common name “shrike” or “fiscal.” They all look like an old friend. Our Queen Elizabeth National Park bird dropped off its perch and dashed around the acacias, disappearing.
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