The Butcher is Back!

And here is something for all the backyard birders out there, a cross-post from Birding Adventure Philippines' blogger Trinket Canlas. Original post can be seen here.) As the wind and rain of back-to-back typhoons pedring and quiel blow and pour, there is an uneasy truce in the backyard. the migrant brown shrike has arrived in the garden, much to the dismay of the current ruling species, the pied fantail (well, at least i imagine the pied fantail must feel something akin to dismay). yesterday, i saw a pair of fantails still whizzing across the garden to catch insects from their favorite pot perches, while the brown shrike picked at something it had caught and impaled on the kafir lime bush. a noisy skirmish would transpire when they would meet up at the gumamela bush and the swing base, ending with both parties retreating to their secured territory. the bulbuls must be amused at this tug-of-war for dominance over the backyard. unfortunately, if all goes the way of previous years, the resident fantails will be relegated to the next door empty lot and the high canopy of the mango tree while the brown shrike will rule over the yard for the rest of the season until summer.

hardly a week since it arrived, adri and i already caught the shrike with a victim. another poor tree frog slaughtered into choice meat sections strung up on the thorns of the kafir lime.  once again the small head was pierced thru its eye socket, and limbs suspended at the joints. flies and the stench of death surround the crime scene.