Loggerhead ID Difficulties

UPDATE: As a follow-up, here's a picture I recently took of a Loggerhead Shrike on the Antelope Island Causeway. Notice how small the hook is compared with Deedee's photos. This particular bird seemed a little young in its behavior. Either there's a lot of individual bird variation, hybridization, or the hook starts out small on younger birds. This hook matches the illustrations in my bird books. I have included another picture of a LOSH that I took in May 2004 on Antelope Island, which again shows the BIG hook. I'm beginning to think the only reliable field mark is whether or not the eye is within the mask.

Oct 2004

May 2004
 

Deedee's photos and original story below

Deedee O'Brien took these pictures at Farmington Bay on September 29 (her first rather impressive attempt at impromptu digiscoping).

This bird was a little fluffed up (it was chilly). He has a significant hook. The feathers just above his tail appear to be white. Also, there's not much, if any, black over the beak that we could see. 

We all (GSL Audubon field group) semi-agreed that this was a Loggerhead Shrike (safest assumption), but there was sufficient vacillation between LOSH and NOSH to venture asking the lurking "experts" out there for a definitive opinion. No fair responding privately! If you think it's a LOSH, no response is necessary. The deafening silence on the birdline will confirm the safest assumption that we arrived at apprehensively by wavering consensus. If you choose to stick your neck out and declare that this is a ?, you will be respected for your courage, even if everyone thinks you're wrong.