One for the Home Team--California Thrashers

 http://www.briansmallphoto.com/images/California-Thrasher_B9H9215.jpg   
 further information-
 http://birds.audubon.org/birds/california-thrasher

   
      Funny birds inspire some birders to get funny too. Here come the nose jokes. (Okay, so I surfed around and there's not a lot of thrasher humor but there are some comical descriptions of "loud" looking  woodpeckers). This bird fits right in with any of your colorful California characters. I had to look twice and laughed out loud when I first spotted the thrasher in the chaparral of Almaden Valley's foothills. Its beak was so long and awkward looking! The bird's overall shape, or silhouette, makes it a quick study in your field guide. Once you've encountered the bird, you know it and remember it. Another funny trait it has besides its looks is its way of sprinting bouncily away from you with its tail up rather than fly off to escape. I saw one yesterday at Ulistac Natural Area (Santa Clara) towering over some sparrows. All of the birds were tossing around leaf litter for seeds and insects. The thrasher rakes with the prominent tool on its head uncovering insects and other invertebrates to eat. These birds are residents of California or Baja California chaparral country. As the thrasher sped away from me, I could make out its light cinnamon belly and undertail coverts. Ground foragers like thrashers and towhees are always a relief for my neck after I've been craning it up to look skyward at hawks and other high flyers. And here's a little bonus factoid from whatbird.com: "It (the thrasher) has been observed standing on nests of carpenter ants and allowing them to run over its body and through its feathers, a behavior known as anting." Anting is also odd. Biologists hypothesize that birds that do this are performing their own way of ridding themselves of mites and lice and bacteria. Some rub themselves with ants, then eat those ants once they have leaked out biocidal secretions onto the bird's skin.