Hoping to see even just a glimpse of one of these beautiful Mountain Bluebirds, I decided to go south west of the city yesterday and drive just a few backroads. I believe I saw four pairs, but from a distance. This one male actually flew to a tree near where I was standing, gave a pose to the left and a pose to the right, and off he flew : ) It was rather unusual behaviour, from my experience. He has been banded a few times - some of these small birds are wearing four coloured bands on their tiny, thin legs. At one tiime, Mountain Bluebird numbers were threatened, but this is turning around, thanks to so many people placing woden nesting boxes along fence lines and other locations. There is great competition for these nesting boxes from Tree Swallows especially, also House Sparrows.

It feels so good to see blue skies and to be able to feel ones fingers when trying to press the shutter button! No ice and snow to clear off the car - what could be better than that?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Bluebird