An over the shoulder look

I have just uploaded a batch of 30 photos from Flickr - I had fallen way behind!

Photographed this beautiful female Mountain Bluebird on 7 June 2014, when I went for a drive along the backroads SW of the city. Though the females don't show the bright blue of the males, they have such a wonderful mix of more subtle colours. They really do have a beauty of their own. This female had just fed a mouthful of insects to her babies in the nesting box.

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...