Flirting Crissal

Most coquettes are hummingbirds, but Catalina State Park’s Crissal Thrashers have been toying with birder’s affections in a big way these past weeks, feeding uncharacteristically out in the open, then dashing back into their wonted thickets.

This one was patrolling one of the big parking lots last Friday, and as we watched, it engaged in a behavior I think of as more typical of mockingbirds, drooping its wingtips and flirting its long, dark tail as it ran and hopped over the gravel. I’d always learned that a mockingbird’s dance was all about the white flashes, but clearly it works in monochrome, too.