We recently spent some time in Colorado and were greeted each morning and evening by a flock of mountain bluebirds that visited the yard of the little cabin we rented.
They were hard to photograph because they always seemed to hang around only during dawn or dusk, and they do not sit still for long. But there was a dry birdbath in the middle of the lawn and one evening I filled it full of water. It’s so dry in Colorado that I barely made it back to the deck with my watering can before two goldfinches and a nuthatch were already getting a drink. Then some bluebirds dropped in and one took a bath.
According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website, Mountain Bluebirds are cavity-nesters and now actually prefer man-made nesting boxes due to their weather-resistance and better protection from predators.
We don’t have these bright-blue little beauties in Wisconsin, but thankfully we do have Indigo Buntings:
