Winter brought many rare birds to the Los Angeles area and I was very happy to see them and photograph a Lewis's Woodpecker, a Painted Redstart, a Summer Tanager, a Blue-headed Vireo, a Eurasian Wigeon, a flock of Red Crossbills, and a White-throated Sparrow. I also encountered and photographed my first banded and tagged bird; an American White Pelican that i saw in the LA River, and later found out the pelican was banded in Idaho as a fledgling. And, perhaps, these birds are not considered rare, but are very special: the partial-albino Red-tailed Hawk, dark-morph Red-tailed Hawk, dark-morph Ferruginous Hawk and Great Horned Owl.