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PG's Help needed. PERPETUATING the great BUTCHERBIRD MYTH

To: "Philip A. Veerman" <>, "BIRDING-AUS" <>
Subject: PG's Help needed. PERPETUATING the great BUTCHERBIRD MYTH
From: "Mike Carter" <>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 12:07:10 -0000
 
In a reply to JAG, copied below, Philip Veerman inadvertently assists in perpetuating what I regard as one of the greatest myths in Australian ornithology.
 
That Butcherbirds impale their prey.
 
At least I have found no evidence of this in Grey Butcherbird which I have observed in detail over many years. To the contrary, even when storing food in their 'larder' as it has been called, in trees with numerous spikes or thorns, they choose not to impale, instead wedging it between the spikes or in clefts, never securing it on a spike as do the Lanius Shrikes.
 
Convinced of the above, the late and great Graham Pizzey raised the matter with me and we exchanged some correspondence. I like to think that partly as a consequence of that exchange, on page 542 of the Pizzey & Knight Field Guide he wrote the following.
 
"Larger victims are wedged into a fork (or an angle in wires of a fence or clothes-hoist) for purchase to tear against. But prey is seldom if ever impaled on thorns".
 
Mike Carter
30 Canadian Bay Road
Mt Eliza    VIC     3930
Ph:  (03) 9787 7136
Email:  
 
This seems like a typical thing for a butcherbird. There is nothing new or astounding about it. More to the point, other things don't do this. That is where the name comes from, hanging meat on hooks, like a butcher. The shrikes of northern hemisphere do the same. The thing is, they don't have strong feet like hawks have, so they need to secure prey on something, while they tear it up.
 
Philip
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