I really love western bluebirds. They have such a bold combination of colors, but each of the hues shows a certain amount of restraint. It’s like they did what I do when editing photos: find the spot where things start to look garish, and then back to a more reasonable point.
In this photo, the colors are muted a bit more by the effect of the bushes I was shooting through. They’re normally very hard to approach in the open country where I normally photograph them, so maybe the modicum of concealment helped me pull off this shot.