The Phainopepla 
A Phainopepla’s egg is quite unlike anything else. Speckled eggs 
there are in abundance, but none others in America are so uniformly 
speckled,—fly-specked as it were—as these. An average egg plotted and 
computed with considerable care, was estimated to have upwards of ten 
thousand spots on it. The markings, while of a nearly uniform size, vary 
greatly in depth; and so run from palest lavender-gray to black; or, more 
rarely, from lavender through a yellowish olive series to sepia. The 
ground-color, too, has a high individual variation, being either white, pale 
greenish, greenish gray, or, more commonly, purplish gray. Now and 
then specimens are found which are strongly suffused with purplish in 
irregular areas. The number of eggs is usually two, but sometimes three; 
and, according to Mr. Morcom, threes predominate in certain favorable 
seasons. 
The male bird shares the duties of incubation (or does 
considerably more than half of it), although he does not 
Taken in the Ojai 
PALE BUT RESOLUTE 
Photo by Dickey 
