In addition, Western Bluebirds will help their parents raise a new brood after their own nest fails.

Species include peregrine falcons, pileated woodpeckers, olive-sided flycatcher, and western bluebirds among others.

In restored forests Western Bluebirds have a higher probability of successfully fledging young than in untreated forests, but they are at greater risk of parasitic infestations.

The color pattern may suggest the Eastern and Western Bluebirds, but the smaller size (13-14 cm or 5-5.5 inches long), wingbars, and short and conical bunting bill quickly distinguish it.

At China Camp State Park in Marin County, site of a former fishing and shrimping village, western bluebirds perch on rattlesnake grass, their periwinkle feathers refracted in the afternoon light.

Other birds include meadow larks, mourning doves, starlings, scrub jays, Steller's jays, blackbirds, sparrows, towhees, western bluebirds, Wilson's warblers, western flycatchers, titmice, humming birds, and many other small birds.

It's typically the males of a given species that seem to figure most prominently in the stupid-behavior department - the militant, mayhem-causing water striders and sticklebacks, for example, or fierce male Western bluebirds, who spend so much time defending nests or courting females that they completely neglect their own offspring.