Date:         Thu, 25 Mar 1999 18:38:01 -0500
Reply-To:     Giff Beaton <giffbeaton@MINDSPRING.COM>
Sender:       Georgia Birders Online <GABO-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         Giff Beaton <giffbeaton@MINDSPRING.COM>
Subject:      Loggerhead Shrike
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

GABbers: In response to some of the recent emails concerning shrikes in GA,
here is my best shot at their current status. First of all, there are two
subspecies which occur in GA. The resident one is Lanius ludovicianus
ludovicianus, and another is a migratory race called L.l.migrans. Resident
birds are doing fairly well, but the population of migrans is in real
trouble and now constitutes a very small number of birds anywhere much less
GA. This subspecies formerly bolstered the numbers of shrikes in GA in
winter, but does not to any degree now. The residents become more common
north to south. In the mountain region they are pretty scarce, and if you
saw a couple in a full day's birding you would be doing very well. There
are a couple of pairs up near Pigeon Moutain along GA 157, for instance.
Shrikes become slightly more common (but still uncommon) as you move into
the Piedmont, but more so away from metro Atlanta. In ten years of birding
Cobb County hard I have yet to find one. A couple of years ago Mal Hodges
had one near the Hartsfield airport for a while, but away from Atlanta I
have found them on several Breeding Bird Atlas quads in the Piedmont as
well. I would not expect to see more than a couple in any all-day trip
here. They really start to pick up in the Coastal Plain, and if you drove
around enough country roads you could find 10-15 in any given day. This
continues almost all the way to the coast, and I would consider them
uncommon here.
 
There are two tools available to everyone on this list that might make this
kind of information easier to obtain, by the way. The first is the
"Annotated Checklist of Georgia Birds", published by GOS in 1986. It is now
slightly dated, but is full of great info about status and abundance and
lists all the records for very rare species. It is currently being updated
by the GOS Checklist and Record Committee, and hopefully will be out early
next year. Meanwhile, the current version is only $5.00 from GOS. The
second is a set of "bar graph" abundance charts for GA birds in the latest
version of the GOS "Birder's Guide to Georgia". They are a little rough
because they were the first attempt to do so for GA but should be helpful
for questions like these. This book is also available from GOS for $10.00.
 
Giff Beaton