576 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
flock of ten Bluebirds were seen flying over a pine ridge, and as the 
weather moderated again they were seen and heard every day until 
we left, the last of the month. Early in November they were abundant 
in flocks at Glenwood, at the foot of the mountains. Twenty-one were 
counted in one flock, including young, and handsome, richly colored 
adults. 
At Wingate, where Mr. Hollister found them common, “one pair, 
with their brood in an old log shack, were busy from early morning 
until late evening, feeding the young with small green caterpillars, 
which were abundant on the shrubbery” (MS). In the Zuni, Sacra¬ 
mento, and Datil Mountains, he also found them common. In the 
Zuni Mountains they were abundant by July 20, going about in flocks 
of adults and full grown young, the young still in juvenal plumage. In 
the first half of September, 1902, they were common in the south end 
of the Sacramento Mountains, and in all open mountain parks throughout 
this range and the White Mountains, as well as in the Ruidoso and Hondo 
Valleys; and in the Datil Mountains, October 4-24, 1905, they were 
perhaps the most abundant and conspicuous birds, going about in 
large flocks. 
In the Capitan Mountains Mr. Gaut found them very numerous 
during July, 1903, low down on the southern slopes at an altitude of 
about 8,000 feet, most especially in the strip where the yellow pines 
and alligator-barked junipers (Juniper us pachyphloea) come together 
and overlap. 
Additional Literature.—Finley, W. L., American Birds, 163-171, 1907 
(nesting habits). 
MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD: Sialia currucoides (Bechstein) 
Description. — Male: Length 6.5-7.9 inches, wing 4.6-4. 8 , tail 3-3.1. Female: 
Length 7-7.2 inches, wing about 4.2, tail 2.7-2.9. Adult male: Upperparts plain 
rich turquoise or cerulean-blue, wings and tail slightly more violet-blue; underparts 
paler and duller, belly white. (In winter, duller, blue of upperparts obscured by 
grayish brown or brownish gray feather tips, and of underparts with wash of grayish 
or brownish.) Adult female: Head and back gray, sometimes faintly tinged with 
greenish blue; rump, upper tail coverts, tail, and primaries turquoise or light cerulean- 
blue; wing coverts gray or bluish; orbital ring white, underparts pale brownish gray 
(sometimes huffy gray), fading to dull white on belly. (In winter, coloration slightly 
deeper.) Young: Brownish or grayish, somewhat streaked with white; wings and 
tail partly blue. 
Range. —Breeds in Canadian and Transition Zones from southeastern Alaska, 
southern Yukon, central Alberta, central Saskatchewan, and southwestern Manitoba 
south to western Nebraska, mountains of Chihuahua and Arizona, and Sierra Nevada 
and Cascades; winters from California and Colorado south to Texas, Kansas, Sonora, 
and Lower California; casual at Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake. 
State Records. —The mountains and valleys of New Mexico constitute the 
southern extension of the breeding range of the Mountain Bluebird. It breeds 
