Explain this margin logic for leftBarButtonItem, rightBarButtonItem, titleView

Can anyone explain to me where the margins you see in this screen shot below are coming from? I want the red, green and blue rectangles to all fit next to each other in both screen layouts, landscape and portrait. Instead I see inexplicable margins between the views.

// Setup Left Bar Button item
UIBlankToolbar* tools = [[[UIBlankToolbar alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 115, 44)] autorelease];
tools.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth;
[tools setBackgroundColor:[UIColor greenColor]];
self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = [[[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:tools] autorelease];

...

// Setup Right Bar Button Item
UIBlankToolbar* tools = [[[UIBlankToolbar alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 44)] autorelease];
[tools setAutoresizingMask:UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth];
[tools setBackgroundColor:[UIColor redColor]];
self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = [[[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:tools] autorelease];

...

// Setup Title View
self.navigationItem.titleView = [[[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 50, 44)] autorelease];
self.navigationItem.titleView.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth;
[self.navigationItem.titleView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor blueColor]];

What I see with this code:

What really perplexes me is that the margins between views become BIGGER as the space available becomes smaller? I don't understand why they are there, nor why they behave counter to what I expect from margins.

Thanks!