A most beautiful blue bird...

Photo by Tim Zurowski / BIA / Minden / Alamy

Red-legged Honeycreeper

Cyanerpes cyaneus

Female - photo by Doug Jansen

The Red-legged Honeycreeper is common throughout South and Central America, which is immensely fortunate for hundreds of thousands of birdwatchers, because this bird is one of the most strikingly coloured birds in the world.   It is small, like a tanager, but the male is violet-blue with a turquoise head, black wings, tail and back, and the underwing is lemon yellow (seen in flight).   It feeds on insects, some fruit and nectar, hence the name honeycreeper.   It is widely regarded in South America, in the way the Eastern Bluebird is admired in North America.

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BarrytheBirder