Bird Description

Common in SE, but increasingly declining to n. Found in open areas with trees. Behaves like NOSH, perching on tops of snags looking for mice, insects, and just about anything its size or smaller. Sometimes hovers (kestrel-like in many ways), using hooked bill for killing prey, carrying it off to be impaled on a barbed wire fence or pointed snag - hence 'butcher-bird.' Flight is fast and direct with rapid wingbeats. Superficially mockingbird-like and easy to overlook, 2-toned and clean looking. ID: Compact with a thick neck and long tail. Clean-cut gray, white, and black with white wing patch striking in flight. Stubby all-black bill and extensive dark mask that extends across forehead. Juv plumage held briefly: buff-tipped coverts and scaly underparts. By late summer most are similar to adults with a few retained juv coverts, larger white tips to tertials, more white above face mask, and subtly duller.