prettygoodword | butcherbird

Is it time for another theme week of bird names? You bet your feathers, it is.

butcherbird (BOOCH-er-burd) - n., any of several carnivorous shrikes of the genus Lanius that impale their prey on thorns; any of several large Australasian magpies (genus Cracticus) that impale their prey on thorns.

And a few other birds around the world that do the same. Butcherbirds do this both to make it easier to pull apart their prey (which can be insects like grasshoppers, in the case of smaller ones, or lizards, frogs, and small mammals, in the case of larger ones) without the heavy talons of raptors, and as a way of caching food for later. Named after butchers, who also hang up meat both to make cutting easier and to cure it.

First kind -- Lanius ludovicianus aka loggerhead shrike