Author: BrantaMedia.Com

_{This YouTube video was produced by the American Bird Conservancy.}

With inky, jet-black plumage and crimson eyes, the male Phainopepla (Phainopepla nitens) shines in the desert scrub of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico. Often described as a “black cardinal with a red eye,” the Phainopepla is actually unrelated to the Northern Cardinal. Instead, it belongs to the Silky-flycatcher family, a small group of lustrous-plumaged, mainly fruit-eating birds found only in the southwestern United States and Central America. The Cedar Waxwing is a close relative and was only recently split into its own family, the Bombycillidae.

But unlike its relatives, the