Bluebirds

We have several kinds of blue colored birds here in Southern California. The most common one that I've seen where we live is the California Scrub Jay, a brilliantly blue colored bird with a raucous screech. They inhabit the foothills of our local mountains and are found in abundance. As you move upslope in the mountains, you'll start to encounter the Stellar's Jay, which is similar to the Scrub Jay, except that the Stellar's Jay has a crest on its head and its head is colored all black.

A couple of days ago, I was wandering around in the park just north of my house, keeping my social distance from others enjoying the nice spring weather. I heard first, then saw this pair of Western Bluebirds. There were actually two pairs of them and I ended up getting shots of both females and one of the males. There are three types of bluebirds in the United States, Eastern, Western, and Mountain bluebirds. Eastern and Western are similar looking, but the Mountain bluebirds are almost totally blue, which is how I knew these were Western bluebirds because of their orange tinged belly feathers. I was able to get several really good shots of the females, but this is the best one I could get of the male as he was playing hard to get with my camera. Sometimes that happens when you're dealing with the natural world.