Cornell’s Birds of North America Online calls Mountain Bluebirds one of the most sublime songbirds in North America and I agree. The cerulean blue of the male is simply spectacular and females and juveniles show some of it too.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to get decent shots of Mountain Bluebirds so it was great fun to photograph both a male and a female in the Wasatch Mountains yesterday morning.
These two siblings seemed almost joined at the hip. Even their movements were choreographed.
In the bird world fledglings of most species always seem to be starving, frantic, vocal and impatient. This young bluebird was no exception.
To get extraordinary images it helps immensely to be inspired by knowing what is possible if you just keep trying.
There can be significant drama in the back story of an image that we miss when looking at a single photo.
I’ve been trying to get close to Mountain Bluebirds here in Wayne County for three days now without a lick of success. But yesterday I tried a different tack and found a single cooperative bird.
It’s the time of year for chicks and fledglings at Montana’s Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.
It’s surprisingly difficult to anticipate direction of take-off, even as birds leave the entrance to a nest cavity in a tree.
Tension has been high between several species at the nest cavity tree. When we arrived yesterday morning this male Northern Flicker was inside the cavity and he spent considerable time enlarging the interior but a pair of Mountain Bluebirds took strong exception to his presence.
This mated pair of Mountain Bluebirds has been involved in tenant wars with a variety of other species for occupancy rights to one of several nest cavities in this aspen tree in Clark County, Idaho
When Sage-Grouse collide with fences the results are often catastrophic for the birds. And it happens all to often.
Conditions are tough in the Centennial Valley of Montana, for both the living and the long-dead.
I realize that this image isn’t likely to have universal appeal, partly because the bluebird is in pretty rough condition. But so is the fence post and there’s just something about that visual congruity that grabs me.
The nesting season of Mountain Bluebirds in Montana’s Centennial Valley was delayed this year due to a late spring cold snap so during my visit there last week some of them were still feeding youngsters in the nest boxes. I’ve found it to be relatively easy to photograph the parent birds on top of the nest boxes with insects for the chicks in their beaks but catching them in flight as they leave the nest with fecal sacs is another story altogether.
