Okay, I concede. I could have and should have posted a much shorter piece on the half-male, half-female human drag queens.
My apologies.
Some interesting tidbits about Northern Cardinals. When branding them, we would offer the bird a q-tip, which it would grab - instead of your finger!
We used to use aluminum bands to band then. It is a butt end band, but the cardinals (most males) would sometimes bite down on the band after being released and deform it. Never saw a bird limping due to a deformed band, but saw several birds with deformed bands.
Now, many banding stations use steel bands. No way a cardinal is deforming that.
The moral of the story - keep fingers away from Northern Cardinals. And grosbeaks. And definitely away from shrikes!