Pros:
I'm not usually impressed with 9-hole courses, but this is a definite exception. With challenging elevation and five heavily wooded shots, this course gets your attention in a hurry.
Holes 1-4 are in the woods, with the baskets on # 2 & # 3 set just right to send your upshot rolling 30 ft downhill. The ground is compacted with no woodchips, so what might look like a nice shot will skip and land far away from your intended target. Hole # 3 is the ace run, but the pin is protected so it's not a gimmie. Holes 5-8 are in the open, but hole # 6 is a decent hole and the pin for # 7 is set on a slope and can lead to a rollaway. # 9 is a short, uphill wooded shot. The backhand route has crown closed but there is still an overstable flick shot route to the hole.
It is a very nicely put together course. It has a good balance of a decent intermediate challenge level and fun elements to make it an enjoyable round.
Cons:
2019 Update: The course was designed with multiple natural tees, and the tee signs are still the original signs showing two tee lengths. The course now has one concrete tee per hole, so there are no multiple distances (the course has always had one pin placement.) The distances on the sign are to old tees that in some cases were not used, so how long the shots are is anybody's guess. New tee signs would be a nice upgrade for this course.
The tee sign for hole 3 is at least 50' behind the actual tee. If you do what I did, you will be walking down the path and see the tee sign with no tee, wonder what to do, throw a shot from that general area and then as you walk toward your throw notice the concrete tee set up the hill waaayyy in front of the tee sign.
The open shots have partially mowed fairways. The mowed area for 6 is pretty wide, but the other mowed areas are pretty tight and should be widened.
The baskets are old single chain 1st generation DisCatchers, so they don't catch very well. They have added a second ring to every other link to kinda-sorts make them act like double chains, but it doesn't work. The basket attachments are the old shallow attachments are well.
When you finish hole # 6, you have to walk back up the fairway to get to the tee for hole 7. That transition is not intuitive and is not marked, so people could get lost at that transition. When you finish hole # 9 the path is there that takes you back toward the parking lot, but if you don't get off the path and walk down the park road that path won't get you back to your car. If you are not paying attention you could take an unintended hike. At least it's a nice hike.
Full Disclosure: I played this course before it was officially open and had a tiny bit of input into the design. The rugged up and down of the opening holes was a feature and the draw of the course; you went to Bluebird for it. Nothing about the "rugged" part of this course took me by surprise by the time DGCR became a thing, so I've had a review on here for years that says nothing about the rugged terrain of holes 1-4. It's rugged, folks. It's like that on the very first hole. Be prepared. If you are not ready for a hike, by the time this course mellows out at hole 5 you will already be hating life and this disc golf course.
Other Thoughts:
After traveling to a lot of parks where you have to wander around forever just to find the course, it was nice to see a course so nicely marked. The main sign points the direction you need to turn to get to the course, and two signs reassure you as you drive back to it that you are still going the right way. Holes 1-3 and 9 are on one hillside and 4-8 are on another, and there are two signs pointing the way to hole # 4 and a big sign in front of the tee for # 9. You rarely see this much signage on a disc golf course.
Since I originally wrote this review, The St. Louis courses haven't really kept up with the times. There really isn't an outstanding "must play" course, but there are several above-average courses and a lot of good golf to be played. Bluebird IMO fits in along in that top 1/2 of courses in town. It's not a "must play" by any stretch of the imagination, and the old baskets will probably turn a lot of golfers off. To me it has the right mix of challenge and fun shots to make it worth the trip.