Summer male: black, including soft parts, with bright red shoulder patch or “epaulet,” bordered by yellow in most subspecies. Winter male: as summer male, but shows warm brown feather tips ...

outlined completely in black; red normally lacking on nape. Adult female: similar to male, but the chin and throat are entirely white. Juvenile: head and underparts pale brownish barred with dusky ...

Black swifts ... they see the top of a gray, feathered head. Torretta swings his net toward the wall, as if forehanding a tennis ball. A bird flutters into its narrow end. It’s not the female ...