Almost noon and we are back inside. It has been a beautiful morning even if the temperature was only 30 at dawn and is now 43 degrees F. The sunshine is brilliant and the breeze light. We walked a trail through the dune forest and found two new year-birds. The first was a golden-crowned kinglet. This sprightly elf darts about in the foliage and characteristically flicks its wings. Racy wing bars and an eye stripes are field marks. It loves to stay hidden in foliage, especially during the breeding season. Here it is wonderfully more exposed even in the leafy live oaks. The second year-bird was a yellow-throated warbler. It is easily distinguished from other small birds by a bright yellow throat and a jazzy black-and-white striped face. A bit of a creeper, it clings to the sides of branches. It was this bird that turned me into a birder when quite young I observed one scurrying about a citrus tree at my grandfather’s home in south Florida. I had his 1940’s style binoculars and struggled to focus both lenses (separately) on this moving bird. I succeeded and for an instant clearly saw this bird dressed in a gray jacket with a white belly, yellow throat, and striped face. I was amazed that a small bird could look so sharp. I had an old Peterson Field Guide and leafed through it to find a picture of the bird I had seen. I noticed that there were two pages illustrating a couple of dozen species of brilliant wood warblers. I decided to see them all. That took a few decades. The only one I missed went extinct in the 1960’s before I could find it. At that time I was clueless as to how and why a bird could sport such a brilliant pattern. It was only later that I read the thoughts of Darwin and came to see how natural forces could create bizarre and brilliant patterns. In this species the pattern is muted by distance, and the bird is effectively camouflaged to avoid predation. The brilliant pattern up front serves another purpose. It says, “I am hot.” And it is. Even primates love to see its face.