Mountain Bluebird

Mountain Bluebird exhibit a variety of foraging techniques, such as perching and swooping down to catch prey, as well as adept on-wing maneuvers that include hovering and hawking insects mid-flight, reminiscent of kestrels. These aerial methods are energetically costly and are employed mainly when sustenance is less abundant. During courtship, males serenade near chosen nest sites to woo females, engaging in conspicuous back-and-forth flights between the nest and the female. Nesting females display intense dedication, allowing close human observance. Post-breeding season, mountain Bluebird form flocks comprising family units and solitary adults, which may undertake extensive but temporary forays away from their nesting areas before entirely vacating their breeding territories.

Their breeding habitat is open country across western North America, including mountainous areas, as far north as Alaska. Although mountain bluebirds can be found in some states year-round, their range is expansive -- they generally migrate south to Mexico in the winter and north into western Canada and even Alaska in the summer. Depending on the time of year, they may be ubiquitous in mountain environments like grasslands or landscapes of sagebrush, where trees and shrubs are fairly spread out.

Mountain Bluebirds are fairly common, but populations declined by about 26% between 1966 and 2014, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Partners in Flight estimates the global breeding population of 4.6 million, with 80% spending some part of the year in the U.S., 20% breeding in Canada, and 31% wintering in Mexico. The species rates an 8 out of 20 on the Continental Concern Score. Mountain Bluebird is a U.S.-Canada Stewardship species, and is not on the 2014 State of the Birds Watch List. These bluebirds benefited from the westward spread of logging and grazing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the clearing of forest created open habitat for foraging. The subsequent waning of these industries, coupled with the deliberate suppression of wildfires, led to a dwindling of open acreage in the West and the decline of the species. More recently, as land-use practices have stabilized, so have Mountain Bluebird populations. Construction of nest boxes in suitable habitat has also provided a population boost. Populations are declining in areas where trees are too small to provide natural nesting cavities, and where forest and agricultural management practices have reduced the availability of suitable nest sites. Among birds that nest in cavities but can't excavate them on their own, competition is high for nest sites. Mountain, Western, and more recently Eastern bluebirds compete for nest boxes where their ranges overlap. House Sparrows, European Starlings, and House Wrens also compete fiercely with bluebirds for nest cavities.