Lai Y Yan recently documented a Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus) feeding on a grasshopper at Morse Park in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The shrike somehow managed to lodge the grasshopper upright between a tangle of intertwining vines (above).
It then moved in and with a swift action dislodged the head that detached with the entrails still attached to it (above, below).
Shrikes have a reputation of impaling their larger prey through a sharp object before tearing pieces up to eat. The impaled prey is sometimes cached to be eaten later – see Link 1, LINK 2, LINK 3, LINK 4, LINK 5 and LINK 6.
An earlier post shows a shrike simply dismembered its prey and eating the parts without impaling it LINK.
After a short period of time the shrike invariable casts a pellet of the indigestible parts, as seen HERE and HERE.
Lai Y Yan
Kowloon, Hongkong
12th December 2017
This post is a cooperative effort between Birds, Insects N Creatures Of Asia and BESG to bring the study of birds and their behavior through photography and videography to a wider audience