Black-faced Brushfinch

A typical forktail, with piebald plumage and long tail. Like most other forktails, it inhabits shaded whitewater streams, along which it perches on boulders and low-hanging branches. Unmarked black back distinguishes it from Slaty-backed and Spotted forktails. Can be confused with Black-backed Forktail, but unlike that species, white does not extend behind the eye. Often detected by its vocalizations, a harsh buzzing whistle and high metallic whistles.

A graceful looking flycatcher, the adult male sport a long ribbonlike tail. The males occur in two color morphs cinnamon and white. Both color morphs sport a glossy black head with blue ring around the eye, but white morph is entirely white below while the cinnamon morph has cinnamon upperparts and tail, and dirty white underparts. The females are cinnamon above with a grayish throat, a shorter tail, and they lack the male’s blue eyering. They make short aerial sallies after insects, usually returning to the same perch. Occasionally descends to ground to pull apart insects. Chiefly found in wooded habitats. Their call is a harsh “shreew.”

Endangered seabird found in the Pacific Ocean well off the coast of Mexico and southern California. It breeds in summer on small islets near Guadalupe Island, located 160 miles from Baja California, and disperses northward and southward at other times of the year. Plumage is dark gray with a notched tail and pale stripes on the upperwing; rump may be either dark or white. Flies erratically and often patters the ocean with its feet. Very similar to Leach’s Storm-Petrel, which also has white- and dark-rumped forms, but it is smaller and darker with more rounded wings and less contrasting wing stripe. Also very similar to Ainley's Storm-Petrel, but keep in mind that Ainley’s has not yet been recorded in US waters.