Mountain Bluebird in the East? (1 Viewer)

My interest in wild birds peaked when we moved to a mountaintop overlooking the Delaware River across the border from New Jersey in Pennsylvania. My feeders are right outside my office under a beautiful Japanese Cherry tree, and after 5 years I still marvel at all the species that perch and feed all year long, providing a respite from my work schedule.

However, for the first time I saw what I identified as a Mountain Bluebird, actually two males, with spectacular coloring from head to breast. They took turns at the feeder for quite a long time. I cellphoned to my husband (a photographer) downstairs and told him to quickly bring his camera in order to capture the beauty of this bird when another of equally lovely coloring flew to a nearby branch.

According to my books these bluebirds are usually found in western states. What a wonderful surprise this morning; I'll take it as a sign of good luck!

Anew joiner,

gerri

Hi Gerri

Welcome to BF.................Enjoy.............:hi:

Hi Gerri and a warm welcome to you from the entire staff here at BirdForum :t:

Pretty area you live in. I know it well.

Hi Gerri, welcome to Birdforum.Enjoy yourself here.

Hello Gerri,
And another welcome to the Birdforum.

Your thread title has a question mark so I'm thinking you may have some doubt about the ID. With this in mind, sighting a Mountain Bluebird in your area would definitely be a sign of good luck as that would be a really out of range sighting, though possible. The only other all blue bird that comes to mind and is resident in your area would be a male Indigo Bunting. Have you ruled this one out? Also, if your husband managed a photo, the experts on our Bird Identification subforum would love to help out with or confirm the ID - just post the photo and question.

Looking forward to hearing more about the birds visiting your property.

I think you're right!

Dave, we just looked in our book and as there's no white on the breast (which first made me think it might be something else) it probably is an indigo. The attached is not quite as "turquoise" as another I saw, and my husband shot this one through a window.

Thanks,

gerri

Is it a Finch species?

If this is indeed a species of finch, I wonder why it didn't go for the finch food with thistle. It (or one of them) has come back a number of times today to feed on the regular seed mix.

gerri

Hi Simismom, a warm welcome and good to have you with us :t:!

simismom said:

If this is indeed a species of finch, I wonder why it didn't go for the finch food with thistle. It (or one of them) has come back a number of times today to feed on the regular seed mix.

gerri

Click to expand...

gerri,
Nice photo and you're right with your Indigo Bunting ID. A beautiful male. I can't really explain their feed preference but I can say they do enjoy quite a varied diet including grasshoppers, beetles, aphids, flies, thistle, small grains, and more.