Only one of these exotic and beautiful tropical species regularly enters into the United States from Mexico during the summer. Both sexes of the Elegant Trogon spend considerable time sitting quietly on an oak, juniper or pine branch, and despite their garish appearance, they can easily be overlooked. Luckily their ringing calls carry long distances, and then they become much more obvious. The females are less colorful and only a bit less noisy but no less interesting.
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Always associated with water, this large tern can be seen on river beaches, over lakes and marshes, or along the ocean throughout the world. It feeds on fish and crustaceans captured by diving headfirst into the water. Breeding colonies are on beaches and grassy hummocks near the water, and the nest is on the sand with some moss or grass. Parents continue to feed the young after they leave the nest for up to 7 months.
Wide ranging across much of North America, the American Crow occurs in many types of open habitat from city parks, farmland, and tidal flats to woodlands. It is, however, absent from much of the lower desert in the southwest. Crows also eat a wide variety of food including insects, lizards, fruit, nuts, carrion and most notoriously the eggs and nestlings of other birds.