loggerhead shrike

American  

noun

1. a common, North American shrike, Lanius ludovicianus, gray above and white below with black wings, tail, and facial mask.

---

Etymology

Origin of loggerhead shrike

An Americanism dating back to 1805–15

Example Sentences

The fire also swept through parts of the island that have rare habitats for sensitive plant and animal species found nowhere else, such as the endangered San Clemente loggerhead shrike, a carnivorous songbird.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 4, 2024

However, several species, such as the San Clemente loggerhead shrike — a robin-sized predator known as the “butcher bird” — remain on the brink of extinction, with just 14 known to be alive.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 4, 2024

There were plenty of species at street level as well: blue jays, cardinals, American crows, Eastern phoebes, killdeer, loggerhead shrike, kestrel falcons, bronzed cowbirds and, rarest of all, an open-ground woodpecker.

From New York Times • Mar. 22, 2012

Others on his growing worry list include the bobolink, the upland sandpiper and the loggerhead shrike.

From Time Magazine Archive

A red-eyed vireo baby in his cradle Out of it Home of the loggerhead shrike, with plenty of convenient hooks for this butcher bird to hang meat on.

From Birds Every Child Should Know by Blanchan, Neltje