Larder Locker Project on iNaturalist
As a member of the Loggerhead Shrike Working Group and in fulfillment of my natural collections curation project for my MS thesis, I created a iNaturalist Project. Loggerhead Shrikes (Lanius ludovicianus), also known as the Butcherbird, are predatory songbirds that create stores of prey items (called larders) by impaling them on objects (including thorns, barbed wire, twigs, etc.). As generalists, their diet consist of a wide variety of prey items (from lizards in the mesquite desserts to crayfish in agricultural ditches) depending upon the habitat they are found in. Creating a collection of these larder images can assist in spreading awareness of the declining Loggerhead Shrike and give insight into their diet composition across their geographic range.The Loggerhead Shrike Working Group started Larder Locker as a collaborative citizen science project aimed at creating a digital collection of georeferenced images of cached prey items of North American shrikes.
Check out the iNaturalist Project here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/larder-locker-north-american-shrike-caches
Loggerhead Shrike Working Group
The Loggerhead Shrike Working Group is a collaborative effort to conserve Loggerhead Shrikes through range-wide monitoring of the species. We have a total of 11 US states and one Canadian province involved. As an aside project, the group analyzed LOSH foraging behavior and created a digital collection of all the georeferenced images of cached prey items found. We encourage citizen scientists to actively look for evidence of this species and its kills and to add their own shrike (specifically Loggerhead Shrikes but Northern Shrikes as well) larder images to this project. We hope to increase understanding of geographic variation in Loggerhead Shrike diet across North America and promote awareness of this amazing, declining songbird.
We also have a lot of banded shrikes we monitor across the seasons, so please contact us if you happen to see a shrike in your area with colored bands on its legs. If you would like to learn more about the working group's efforts or join the Shrike Force, visit our website: loggerheadshrike.org
