I have had a Northern Shrike patrolling my feeders for about a week now. I’ve seen him twice now pretty closely.  Also, he may have been responsible for mortally wounding a sparrow, but I scared it off before I really saw it, and a magpie came a minute later and claimed the poor victim. I’ve never known a magpie to attack a house sparrow, so I’m surmising that the shrike did the initial damage. Also. the magpies around here are so well fed that I doubt they would turn to birdicide.  Regardless, this is an excitement for me, being the first time I’ve had a shrike in my yard. 
  I’m 2 miles south of Ucon on Yellowstone highway, near Idaho Falls

google search for an older, May/June BIRDING article from the ABA journal by birder Steve Shunk. It describes and illustrates the ID issues in the hybrid saps. I think he gives definitive info. Cheers, Judy from Bend, Oregon, near hybrid zone where we see a lot of these mixed up sapsuckers. Jmeredit@…

I’ve been looking at these photos too and I think RL makes some
good points. I’m not sure how you go about ruling out a Red-naped
x Red-breasted hybrid, either with this individual or any other
daggetti-like individual. I’ve looked for ID info a number of
times and I still don’t know of a definitive source??? If anyone
has a suggestion I’d love to hear it. 

Cliff

RL….you may indeed be correct on this….Cindy and I had the exact
discussion. This one is out of our league….perhaps a hybrid. We’ll
wait for the experts on this one….

-- 
Cliff and Lisa Weisse
Island Park, Idaho
cliffandlisa@...

First of all great photo. Definitely a Merlin, notice the small notch in the upper mandible,  this is a falcon character not present in other birds of prey ruling out things like Sharp-shinned Hawks. Again congrats on the nice pictures