Bathing Beauties

Darlene and I found the Benson sewage ponds swanless this morning, so headed down to St. David, halfway hoping that the great white vagrant had put down on a field or pond somewhere in between.

It was not to be, but in the town of St. David itself, we ran across a small band of Mountain Bluebirds bathing in a roadside puddle. Suddenly there were more, and more, and more….

The flock was somewhere between 200 and 250 bluebirds, with small numbers of Lark Sparrows, Lesser Goldfinches, Lawrence’s Goldfinches, and House Finches joining in on the splashing fun.

Many of the bluebirds showed bulging crops, and every few minutes brought up a bright red pyracantha berry, which they briefly mandibulated before swallowing it again.

The males are beautiful, of course.

But the females are pretty breathtaking in their own way.

Many this morning were the classic cool gray one associates with the species, but there were numerous females in the flock showing the rich yellowish-orange upper breast and throat of fresh plumage.