Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: back / side view

HAPPY 4th JULY to all Americans, whether at home or overseas! Somehow, I just can't imagine having a hairy caterpillar dropped down my throat, lol! No doubt this female Mountain Bluebird's babies don't mind, though. Photographed when I went for a drive along the backroads SW of the city, on 23 June 2014. 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... The famous, annual Calgary Stampede begins today, with the Stampede Parade taking place downtown this morning. William Shatner (from Star Trek) is our Parade Marshall. No worries about the weather, as it's a beautiful, sunny day today. Temperature is 21°C so far, so not unbearably hot for people who are lining the parade route or taking part in the parade. Yesterday afternoon, we got up to around 32°C, which was too hot for my liking.

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...