Female Phainopepla on the Tuolumne River

I've only seen them a few times on the Tuolumne, but it is always a delight to see a Phainopepla (Phainopepla nitens). When you walk a trail every other day or so, you may get familiar with the habits of individual birds, and you find yourself watching particular bushes very carefully. That was the case the other day, although I wasn't specifically looking for the Phainopepla. The native elderberry bush has been a good spot over the last few years for a variety of species who feed off the ripe berries. The Phainopepla usually consumes mistletoe berries, but I've seen both a female and a male in this particular shrub (really almost a tree, it's 12 feet high). I also have seen a male in the nearby cottonwood tree (where there is plenty of mistletoe).

Of course it was late in the day and there was no sunlight so I only got a silhouette in my photos, and I couldn't even tell whether it was a male or female at first. The prominent crest is the giveaway that it was a Phainopepla, but the males are a silky black color while the females are gray. I slowly walked past the bush until I could look back and see the gray color of the female. I used the photo-editing program to extremes to bring out the features of the bird in the picture below. I still couldn't bring out the striking red eye of the bird, but you can see that in some of my earlier posts.