• Read more about Yellow-breasted Chat

This unusually large and bizarre warbler is impossible to see unless it wants to be seen. Then it emerges from the thick shrubbery and brush to flaunt itself with conspicuous fluttering flights. It has an amazingly large repertoire of songs. Food consists of insects and fruits. The nest is large and cup-shaped and hidden in dense tangles of low vegetation.

• Read more about Rose-throated Becard

A tropical species, the Rose-throated Becard occurs in desert riparian forests, open woodlands and mangroves. They feed on insects hawked from the air or gleaned from leaves, and during the fall and winter they rely on fruits. The large, hanging nest is made of plant fibers woven with bark shreds, spider webbing and leaves and suspended high in a tree top from the tip of a branch.

• Read more about Least Bittern

This tiny heron occurs in swampy vegetation, brackish marshes and mangroves. It is most easily seen when it flies across open areas among the vegetation. When threatened, it will cling to vertical stems and freeze in position, pointing its bill upward and mimicking bull rushes and other aquatic vegetation. The Least Bittern gleans insects and amphibians from stalks and leaves and also catches fish and aquatic invertebrates at the water's edge. Its nest is made of sticks and placed near the ground or over the water in dense vegetation.

• Read more about Gray Jay

Often a bold and fearless resident of picnic tables and human camping areas in coniferous forest and mountains. The Gray Jay eats insects, fruit, and dead animals. It often caches mouths-full of food in branches and needles of trees for use in leaner times. The nest is large and woven from sticks, bark, moss and mammal hair and well insulated from the early spring cold temperatures. It is placed on a horizontal branch near the trunk In especially hard winters, Gray Jays move down to lower altitudes.

• Read more about Brown-crested Flycatcher

This large flycatcher is extremely noisy and inhabits the canopy of riparian forest in desert areas. It hawks insects on the wing and has been know to eat hummingbirds as well. In the late summer and winter it eats more fruit. An aggressive species, it defends its territory against many other bird species. Its nest is in a natural tree cavity or old woodpecker hole in a Saguaro Cactus. The Brown-crested Flycatcher abandons its summer range earlier than most migrants, and by August has returned to Mexico.