Citations:murderbird

English citations of murderbird

1994 January 24, Dave Tiller, in What's a Shrike?, rec.birds, Usenet:
Meryem Primmer ([email protected]) wrote:

: Somehow today's lunch conversation managed to drift onto the subject

: of hawks. One person mentioned a type of hawk (?), a shrike, that

: hangs its prey on fences or other objects in order to attract a mate.

: This generated lots of heated debate by a lot of people, none of whom

: (including me) know much about birds of prey.

It's also known as a murderbird. There's also another name for it,

one that's apparently named after a famous murderer. (Not Jack T.R.)

I've heard that it impales bugs/small rodents/etc on barbed wire, tree

branchers, etc.

2002, Quincy Troupe, Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems:
FLYING PREDATORS

butcherbird-shrikes, jackiehangmen, murderbirds

impale victims onto needle-sharp thorns, string them out

like ornamental trophies

2006, Patrick Rosal, My American Kundiman: Poems (→ISBN):
They say the sky will double at least once during a man's lifetime and so it did in Boulevards head But turgid birds came three by three and then some to fling themselves about So he swatted them away too To fill the aching gapes of heaven he invited another swallow then two then three (their flashy undersides a dazzle and distraction) then nuthatch then murderbirds then uncountable dozens more This is how he thought he'd save himself but soon enough his whole brain had become a madness of wings A squeaky starling racket Grackles darkening him.

2016, Jay Hopler, The Abridged History of Rainfall (→ISBN), page 33:
We're all going to snuff it in the dark and when we do, the angels will, like murderbirds, descend on us from Heaven, our prayers still caught in their teeth.

2009 July 2, Hal Womack 3-dan, in Re: Venus Williams To Wed Mars' Womack?, rec.music.hip-hop, Usenet:
* Except, of course, for that considerable part which is either

starving to death ( in this general category another ~44,000

fatalities today ) or suffering bombardment from USraeli hi-tech

murderbirds aka Obombers or else bowling.

2000, New Hibernia Review:
... pulse

with cold, and there he freed his sight.

Lord Whirlabout again, those murderbirds

not his first notice of Senan, only another

assault out of his crane bag fully stocked

with tumbles.