Ted, Snow, and a Shrike Strike - UPDATE February 23, 2019
Today, Ted ate snow and even placed a clump on the back of his paw like he does with grapes in the summer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GazJboeqxLE.
He ate the clump, but crumbles of it were still on his paw. Instead of eating them, which probably would have meant ingesting bits of straw with them, he went back to the mother lode of snow for clean, fresh bites. Taught caught it all in this 4-minute videoOut the window at home early this morning, the siskins and redpolls scattered fast when a northern shrike sailed in for a bird breakfast with no luck. It sat on the ground where it landed, looking bewildered, and flew off. No camera. A very uncommon sighting. Donna didn’t want to see a bird get impaled for storage, as is a habit of shrikes, but she did say that shrikes have to eat, too. This is part of the northern shrike’s winter range. Their summer range is in the boreal forest of Canada and Alaska.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center