Small to Medium Wild Blue Birds

Predominantly Blue Birds (listed in order of size)

See also Gray Birds or links at right.

BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER
(Polioptila coerulea) Gnatcatcher family
AKA: SYLVAN FLYCATCHER

In thick woodlands, where a stream that lazily creeps through the mossy, oozy ground attracts myriads of insects to its humid neighborhood, this tiny hunter loves to hide in the denser foliage of the upper branches.

The Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher has the habit of nervously flitting about from twig to twig of his relatives, the kinglets, but unhappily he lacks their social, friendly instincts, and therefore is rarely seen. Formerly classed among the warblers, then among the flycatchers, while still as much a lover of flies, gnats, and mosquitoes as ever, his vocal powers have now won for him recognition among the singing birds. Some one has likened his voice to the squeak of a mouse, and Nuttall says it is "scarcely louder," which is all too true, for at a little distance it is quite inaudible.

In addition to the mouse-like call-note, the tiny bird has a rather feeble but exquisitely finished song, so faint it seems almost as it the bird were singing in its sleep.

If by accident you enter the neighborhood of its nest, you soon find out that this timid, soft-voiced little creature can be roused to rashness and make its presence disagreeable to ears and eyes alike as it angrily darts about your unoffending head, pecking at your face and uttering its shrill squeak close to your very ear-drums. All this excitement is in defense of a dainty, lichen-covered nest, whose presence you may not have even suspected before, and of four or five bluish-white, speckled eggs well beyond reach in the tree-tops.

During the migrations the Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher seems not unwilling to show its delicate, trim little body, that has often been likened to a diminutive mocking-bird's, very near the homes of men.

The Gnatcatcher's graceful postures, song and constant motion, are sure to attract attention. In Central Park, New York City, the bird is well known. 

INDIGO BUNTING
(Passerina cyanea) Finch family
AKA: INDIGO BIRD

The "glowing indigo" of this tropical-looking visitor that so delighted Thoreau in the Walden woods, the Indigo Bunting often seems only the more intense by comparison with the blue sky, against which it stands out in relief as the bird perches singing in a tree-top.

What has this gaily dressed, dapper little cavalier in common with his dingy sparrow cousins that haunt the ground and delight in dust-baths, leaving their feathers no whit more dingy than they were before, and in temper, as in plumage, suggesting more of earth than of heaven? Apparently he has nothing, and yet the small brown bird in the roadside thicket, which you have misnamed a sparrow, not noticing the glint of blue in her shoulders and tail, is the Indigo Bunting's mate.

Besides the structural resemblances, which are, of course, the only ones considered by ornithologists in classifying birds, indigo buntings have several sparrow-like traits. They feed upon the ground, mainly upon seeds of grasses and herbs, with a few insects interspersed to give relish to the grain; they build grassy nests in low bushes or tall, rank grass; and their flight is short and labored.

Borders of woods, roadside thickets, and even garden shrubbery, with open pasture lots for foraging grounds near by, are favorite haunts of these birds, that return again and again to some preferred spot. However close to our homes they build theirs, our presence never ceases to be regarded by them with anything but suspicion. Their metallic cheep, cheep, warns you to keep away from the little blue-white eggs, hidden away securely in the bushes; and the nervous tail twitching and jerking are pathetic to see. Happily for the safety of their nest, the brooding Indigo Bunting mother has no tell-tale feathers to attract the eye. Dense foliage no more conceals the male bird's brilliant coat than it can the Scarlet Tanager's or Baltimore Oriole's.

With no attempt at concealment, he chooses some high, conspicuous perch to which he mounts by easy stages, singing as he goes; and there begins a loud and rapid strain that promises much, but growing weaker and weaker, ends as if the bird were either out of breath or too weak to finish. Then suddenly he begins the same song over again, and keeps up this continuous performance for nearly half an hour.

The noonday heat of an August day that silences nearly every other voice, seems to give to the Indigo Bunting bird's only fresh animation.

CLIFF SWALLOW
(Petrochelidon lunifrons) Swallow family
AKA: EAVE SWALLOW; CRESCENT SWALLOW; ROCKY MOUNTAIN SWALLOW

Not quite so brilliantly colored as the barn swallow, nor with tail so deeply forked, and consequently without so much grace in flying, and with a squeak rather than the really musical twitter of the gayer bird, the Cliff Swallow may be positively identified by the rufous feathers of its tail coverts, but more definitely by its crescent-shaped frontlet shining like a new moon.

Such great numbers of these Cliff Swallows have been seen in the far West that the name of Rocky Mountain swallows is sometimes given to them; however rare they may have been in 1824, when DeWitt Clinton thought he "discovered" them near Lake Champlain, they are now common enough in all parts of the United States.

In the West this swallow is wholly a cliff-dweller, but it has learned to modify its home in different localities. As usually seen, it is gourd-shaped, opened at the top, built entirely of mud pellets ("bricks without straw"), softly lined with feathers and wisps of grass, and attached by the larger part to a projecting cliff or eave.

Like all the swallows, the Cliff Swallow lives in colonies, and the clay-colored nests beneath the eaves of barns are often so close together that a group of them resembles nothing so much as a gigantic wasp's nest.

It is said that when swallows pair they are mated for life; but, then, more is said about swallows than the most tireless bird-lover could substantiate.

The tradition that swallows fly low when it is going to rain may be easily credited, because the air before a storm is usually too heavy with moisture for the winged insects, upon which the swallows feed, to fly high.

BARN SWALLOW
(Chelidon erythrogaster) Swallow family

Any one who attempts to describe the coloring of a bird's plumage knows how inadequate words are to convey a just idea of the delicacy, richness, and brilliancy of the living tints. But, happily, the beautiful barn swallow is too familiar to need description. Wheeling about our barns and houses, skimming over the fields, its bright sides flashing in the sunlight, playing "cross tag" with its friends at evening, when the insects, too, are on the wing, gyrating, darting, and gliding through the air, it is no more possible to adequately describe the exquisite grace of a swallow's flight than the glistening buff of its breast.

The Barn Swallow is a typical bird of the air, as an oriole is of the trees and a sparrow of the ground. Though the barn swallow may often be seen perching on a telegraph wire, suddenly it darts off as if it had received a shock of electricity, and we see the bird in its true element.

While this swallow is peculiarly American, it is often confounded with its European cousin Hirundo rustica in noted ornithologies.

Up in the rafters of the barn, or in the arch of an old bridge that spans a stream, these swallows build their bracket-like nests of clay or mud pellets intermixed with straw. Here the noisy little broods pick their way out of the white eggs curiously spotted with brown and lilac that were all too familiar in the marauding days of our childhood.

BLUE GROSBEAK
(Guiraca carulea) Finch family

This beautiful but rather shy and solitary bird occasionally wanders eastward to rival the bluebird and the indigo bunting in their rare and lovely coloring, and eclipse them both in song. Audubon, we remember, found the Blue Grosbeak's nest in New Jersey. Pennsylvania is still favored with one now and then, but it is in the Southwest only that the Blue Grosbeak is as common as the evening grosbeak is in the Northwest.

Since rice is its favorite food, the Blue Grosbeak's naturally abounds where that cereal grows. Seeds and kernels of the hardest kinds, that its heavy, strong beak is well adapted to crack, constitute its diet when it strays beyond the rice-fields.

Possibly the heavy bills of all the grosbeaks make them look stupid whether they are or not -- a characteristic that the blue grosbeak's habit of sitting motionless with a vacant stare many minutes at a time unfortunately emphasizes.

When seen in the roadside thickets or tall weeds, such as the field sparrow chooses to frequent, it shows little fear of man unless actually approached and threatened, but whether this fearlessness comes from actual confidence or stupidity is by no means certain.

Whatever the motive of its inactivity, the blue grosbeak accomplishes an end to be desired by the cleverest bird; its presence is almost never suspected by the passer-by, and its grassy nest on a tree-branch, containing three or four pale bluish-white eggs, is never betrayed by look or sign to the marauding small boy.
   

See also...
Larger Blue  Birds

Eastern Bluebird
Blue Jay
Belted Kingfisher
Mourning Dove

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