Impale : verb
Im.pale
Transitive verb.
To pierce with or as if with something pointed.
especially : to torture or kill by fixing on a sharp stake.
Reading the word impale, the one striking visual which comes to mind is of the barbarians. The most common practice of them showing power and pride in their killing by piercing a spike through the body or the the head of their kill and decorating the spike in front of the gates or in the walls of their kingdom. This practice would have been a common sight back in the early wars of the land but since the development of civilisation and the coming of democracy this sight of impaling is only visible in the shops of a butcher.
And there is one such animal in the wild who has been practicing this very commonly and as a basic plating for its diet. This bird looks very small, decent and cute but to see it hunting for food, anyone might be shocked to see how this little bird becomes barbaric.
This bird is commonly known as The Great Grey Shrike, locally called in Hindi as Dudiya Latora or Safed Latora. This thrush sized bird is grey and white in colour with black thick line crossing across the eyes like a mask and a thick black plumage over the end of the wings and in the middle of the tail.
These are most commonly found in open habitats with scattered vegetation, from open bogs to brushy meadows. They are often seen perching over the power lines and short tree tops in the lookout for their prey which could be anyone from a small bird to a rodent or a lizard. After picking up the hunt with its foot this bird tore its hunt to pieces with its hooked bill before devouring it. This bird doesn’t miss out on a chance to hunt even when they’re full. They store the surplus hunt impaled on the thorns. Which makes them alluring for many folktales making them infamous as Butchers in the sky.
