BLUE BIRDS SEEN IN NORTH AMERICA

Mountain Bluebird 

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Sialia Currucoides 

Males have bright cobalt-blue upperparts and head, with darker lores and ear-coverts. Flight feathers’ tips and tail’s tips are dark gray, underparts are paler, azure-blue. Chin and throat are washed pale turquoise, whereas belly and undertail-coverts are whitish. Their eyes are dark brown, bill, legs, and feet are blackish.

Females are duller and have a warm buff- brownish upperparts with greenish-blue tinge on upperwing, rump and tail. The underparts are pale buff. Their eyes are dark brown with whitish eye-ring. Some may have a pale rufous tinge on the breast.

Juveniles are similar to females with slightly darker and duller upperparts, and scaly effect below, especially on throat and breast.

BILL: black, thin.

SIZE: medium-sized, about 6.3 - 7.8 inches in length.

WEIGHT: weighs about 30 grams.

COLOR: cobalt-blue, azure-blue, pale turquoise, dark-gray, white, dark brown, black, buff-brownish, pale buff, greenish-blue, and rufous.

Insects such as Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hemiptera and several other species in variable amount. They also consume plant matter such as seeds, fruits, and berries from numerous plant species.

BREEDS: grassland with scattered thickets and shrubs, savannahs, tree-line tundra, and prairie-forest and clear-cuts, It needs cavities for nesting.

WINTER: flat grassland with some trees and bushes, also meadows with hedges and trees, lowland, farmland and several types of forests.

BREEDS: Central and Eastern Alaska, Western and Central Canada and Western USA.

WINTER: southwards to Southwest and South-central USA and western and central Mexico.

CALL: Utters a thin, nasal “few” or feeer” as a contact call.

The alarm call is a high- pitched “tink” or a short, harsh “chak”.

SONG:  It is given from perches within the territory and near the nest, or sometimes in flight.

There are two types of songs.

Day song: It is the commoner, a soft, short warbler “eee-ee-e” often repeated.

Dawn song: Often given in flight, before the first light. This is a loud, warbled “jerrf jerrf jewr jipo jerrf” lasting some seconds. Usually heard during the breeding season.

NEST: The male selects the nest-site and the female builds a cup-shaped nest made of coarse dry grass and lined with softer materials such as fine stems, pieces of bark, wool or feathers. The nest is built in a cavity, a tree or rock crevice.

EGGS:  4 - 8 pale blue eggs. 

INCUBATION: 13 - 14 days, female.

NESTLING PHASE: 18 - 21 days.

They forage from perches, like other bluebirds, to snatch food from ground, vegetation, and mid-air. They usually hunt more from the ground and by hovering than congeners do. They hover low over grassy grounds in open areas and drop to pounce on prey.

SOURCES: https://www.allaboutbirds.org

                   http://www.oiseaux-birds.com

                   https://en.wikipedia.org

                   https://www.birds-of-north-america.net