Gardner 4/10/07 (Northern Shrike)

While driving past Mount Wachusett Community College this morning, I noticed a "blob" of whitish-gray on the shrub line on the far side of the campus pond, off Green Street. Back in December I had seen an adult Northern Shrike in that very spot, and a month and half later ,what presume was the same bird, in the campus pond area. I was hoping it would be a shrike and not a piece of litter hung up in the shrubs. Now that we are well into April I was hoping (a real long shot) it would be a Loggerhead, but once I had my binoculars "on it" I could clearly see it was indeed a shrike...a Northern Shrike. It was my latest spring sighting of this species in the area, I had seen one back on 4/9/1999 in Templeton.

Here is a somewhat fuzzy digi-scoped photo, the only one it allowed as it quickly flew off.

Northern Shrike at WMCC