Whoops--Not a Northern Shrike

I've been following the discussion on line regarding the "Jones Beach shrike," and it seems that the consensus, after comparing photographs of that bird to photos of known Northern Shrikes is that the bird we saw on 11/21 is actually a Loggerhead Shrike, which is smaller and subtly different than the Northern.

Ironically, Loggerhead Shrike is a rare bird for New York State, while Northern is at least expected, though not usually this far south. Loggerhead's range is in the southern tier of the country. The first one we saw was in New Jersey where it made all the rare bird alerts. Subsequently we've seen them on their "home ground" in both Texas and Arizona.

I have to admit that when I saw the shrike I got a good enough look at to know it was a shrike but my identification of it as a Northern was due to other people saying it was a Northern and also to the fact that a Loggerhead would be so rare. This is a case where Occam's Razor (the simplest explanation) fails. But then, much of the fun in twitching is defying Occam's Razor.

So I've had to strike the shrike from our life lists. Greatly disappointed. However, I do get to add Loggerhead to my New York State list. Shari, though, doesn't care about in what state (or country) she sees the bird--she just wants to see the bird.