Mother Nature

This pretty male Bluethroat posed for me yesterday.

Actually, he didn’t see me, or he would have disappeared,
like he did a few times before.

I was stalking the birdies from our terrace yesterday afternoon
and after some heavy cropping of the picture, I got these two
more or less decent shots.

When I looked for the ID, I found that some Bluethroats seem to be
rounder than the ones we have here.
That’s why I at first wasn’t sure this really was a Bluethroat,but he is.

They have a height of about 15cm.

The colourful plumage is his breeding plumage and the spot in the middle of
the blue can be white or orange.

The female has a black fringed white throat.

In winter you can tell the Bluethroats by the reddish colour at their tail base,
the rest of the plumage gets much duller.

Bluethroats are ground dwelling birds and live often near water and swamps with
thick reeds and vegetation.

He breeds in eastern Turkey (so, why does he still wear his breeding plumage now that he’s here?) and in Europe.
He’s a migrant and winter visitor to Egypt and the Middle East.

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I got this Info from the Photographic Guide to Birds of Egypt and the Middle East (Ignore the prices on amazon - the book cost me here less than 6 Euro….!)