Going out to Huntington Gardens today with my agent–hoping to see one of the feral breeding populartion of  Yellow-Chevroned Parakeets. That’d be a really cool lifer!  (Not as cool as seeing them in their actual native habitat would be, but once they’re an established population, they count.)

Saw a cool bird called a Phainopepla yesterday, or rather, four of them. I’ve never even heard of ’em before (and don’t ask me to pronounce the name.) They look sort of like a large titmouse, the same thin crest, but the males are jet black and both sexes have blood-red eyes. They look a little crazed. When they fly, these immense white wing patches are suddenly visible, so they’re very flashy in the air.  Apparently they live primarily on mistletoe berries. (They belong to a family called the “Silky Flycatchers,” which is just a cool name.)

I really like this bird for some reason. Maybe it’s the crazy eyes.

*cough* Having exceeded bandwidth for some innocent sites, let me just suggest you google the little buggers.