Visitor to the city

Usually, one has to drive out of the city in order to find the beautiful Mountain Bluebird. Each year, though, a handful might be seen in one location or another within the city. Around 10 of these startlingly blue birds were seen yesterday (16 April 2013) at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, when I was on a walk with friends. The birds, male and female, would fly off and then return to land on the pebbles along the edge of the Bow River. This would have been my "best" photo from the sighting, if only the bird had turned its head just once before it immediately flew off, lol. I think most people probably don't have more than one photo from their Contacts displayed on their Home Page, so thought I'd slip this one in, as a reminder to myself, and to show the beautiful feather colour and pattern of the back view. Most of the time, the birds were not this close!

In Bluebirds, the blue colour is produced by the structure of the feather - there is no blue pigment. "Tiny air pockets in the barbs of feathers can scatter incoming light, resulting in a specific, non-iridescent color. Blue colors in feathers are almost always produced in this manner. Examples include the blue feathers of Bluebirds, Indigo Buntings, Blue Jay's and Steller's Jays."

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mountain_Bluebird/id

www.jstor.org/discover/pgs/index?id=10.2307/4077277&i...



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Bluebird