There's birds native to australia that have the same horrific habit and theyre equally adorable. They also have one of my favourite birdsongs
Butcherbirds are insect eaters for the most part, but will also feed on small lizards and other vertebrates. They get their name from their habit of impaling captured prey on a thorn, tree fork, or crevice. This "larder" is used to support the victim while it is being eaten, to store prey for later consumption, or to attract mates.
Hearing this made me sad that I don't get to hear most of the north American song birds. IIRC they were either shot or out competed by European species like starlings or sparrows. 😟
The robins, song sparrow, and chickadee are alive and well in my part of the PNW. Mostly the noise of modern life drowns them out, so you have to know when and where to find them. Song sparrow are super cute and have a great song. I have a couple pairs that live near me. One in my front yard and one in the back. They call back and forth most of the day. It's wonderful
I love a scifi series called the Hyperion Cantos that has a supernatural creature called the Shrike that impales people on a "time tree" to steal their Entropy. It's not at all adorable though.
(major death of the author tho, and the 3rd/4th book get pretty problematic)
I only got through the original Hyperion, it had great ideas but boring as hell execution. Anyways I always wanted to know, is the Shrike traveling in time backwards? Isn't it's destiny in the past?
Kind of? I think it mostly lives outside of time iirc, but it's been some...time, since I digested it all. It definitely originated in the future though, you find out in the Endymion books.
It has one mission: to make the human target that is the greatest foe of the machines to show up and kill him/her. And the way is hurting humans in that particular way.
North American version is in the picture: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loggerhead_shrike :)
