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Adult female in Livermore, California. The western bluebird is a small stocky bird with a length of 15 to 18 cm (5.9 to 7.1 in). The adult male is bright blue on top and on the throat with an orange breast and sides, a brownish patch on back, and a gray belly and undertail coverts.
An adult male is bright turquoise-blue above and somewhat lighter blue underneath but with a white lower belly. An adult female has duller blue wings and tail, grey breast, grey crown, throat and back. In fresh fall plumage, the female's throat and breast are brownish near the flank, contrasting with white tail underparts. [10]
Male bluebirds have a bright head, back, and wings. Their breast is a brownish red. [12] Females are lighter with gray on the head and back and some blue on their wings and tail. In females, the breast is usually lighter in color than in males, and is more orange. [12]
The female has a grey-brown head neck and breast, becoming pale blue-grey on the underwings and belly. The back is ruddy brown, contrasting with the chestnut rump and tail. The spots in the wings are chestnut-brown. Young birds resemble the female, but have ruddy scaling on the back.
The eastern bluebonnet is a medium-sized parrot with prominent crest-like head feathers. [2] All bluebonnets have a mostly olive-grey to brown upperbody, foreneck and breast, with the outerwing and leading edge to the folded wing being dark blue, a blue forehead and face.
It is a medium-large (~120 g) passerine bird similar in size to most other jays, with a blue head, blue-gray mantle, blue wings and tail, gray breast and underparts. The sexes are morphologically similar, and juveniles differ only in having less blue coloration. The iris is brown and legs are black.
A bold black stripe passes through the eye and there is a less well-defined, short stripe on the chin. The male has a blue back and tail and a pale bluish breast, speckled with black. The female has a grey back and a pale grey breast, speckled with black. The bill is dark grey and the legs are pale pink.
The genus Sialia was introduced by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1827 with the eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis) as the type species. [2] [3] A molecular phylogenetic study using mitochondrial sequences published in 2005 found that Sialia, Myadestes (solitaires) and Neocossyphus (African ant-thrushes) formed a basal clade in the family Turdidae.