A house to match

Yay, finally a fix for the uploading problem this morning! Posting my daily three right before 1:00 p.m., after a few hours of waiting.

This makes me smile, as this Mountain Bluebird male is standing on a wooden nest box that matches his colours perfectly. Actually, I believe it is the female that makes the final choice for which box they will use, so she chose well.

This photo was taken six days ago, on 24 May 2016, when I went for just a short drive SW of the city. After a couple of days of rain, the sun came out and I reckoned I had better make the most of it. On the way, I called in at a wetland in SW Calgary and was glad to see the Red-necked Grebe. Just drove my usual back roads, seeing some of the usual birds - Mountain Bluebirds, Wilson's Snipe, Red-winged Blackbirds.

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...