But from those perches, the two-ounce bird frequently swoops onto its prey, and subdues it with the murderous, hooked tip of its beak. From a distance, it looks like any other songbird, perched on a high vantage point.
The shrike is a hawk trapped in the body of a finch. These grisly dioramas are the work of the unlikeliest of butchers: a small bird called the loggerhead shrike. The carcasses belong to lizards, rodents, small birds, and even snakes, all impaled on the sharp prongs.
There are places in the southern United States where the roadsides are fenced with barbed wire, and the wire is adorned with corpses.
