[Bluebird-babble] Fw: Help ID Bluebird

[Patrick Gould]

Hi

Sad!!  I just found a female bluebird dead in one of my nest boxes.  She was on 5 eggs.  No sign of trauma although she had her wings spread as if trying to protect the eggs.  Could she have been scared to death or could there be a puncture wound that is no longer visible?  The nest box and nest were not disturbed and the eggs were intact.

I am having trouble telling if she is a western or a mountain.

She has a lot of very obvious reddish color across her breast but she has the thin white line over the bill (supposed to be a MOBL character).  The longest primary minus the longest secondary is 37 mm + or - 1 mm. which should indicate WEBL although at the very top of its range.  The wing and tail lengths are in the range of overlap between the two species.  Are there any other good characters to separate females in these two species? 

On the brighter side the juniper titmouse is incubating 5 eggs and one of my mountain bluebirds has 4 or 5 young perhaps only a few days old. 

Pat
Florence
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