It was a gloomy day, pure November in the Midwest. The sky was low and heavy with gray clouds. There was a brisk wind and slight mist. Trees were mostly leafless. I was hiking in a nature preserve, getting away from work and people. The cold wouldn’t let you get comfortable; you had to pay attention to it, and you had to pay attention to the wind. So you forgot your own problems. But if you had any, the gray day made a good background for them. Birds? Nothing doing. I’d seen a crow flying in the distance, but there were no birds here. Just the misty wind and the solitude. I’d seen more birds on the drive over, Red-tailed Hawks sitting on poles along the highway. Starlings flying in a pack like a school of fish, going nowhere. Not much else. Around my house there would be Juncos and Cardinals. But here in the wild, nothing. Then it all changed. Just when you think you’ve got things figured out, that you know the name of the game, that the day and your mood are in synch, just then, nature throws you a surprise. There was a cyclone fence at the edge of the preserve. It looked odd; it had a bluish tinge. The openings in the wire were plugged with something. What the….? I got my binocs up and took a look. Fifty, maybe more, Eastern Bluebirds were all over the fence, perched in the openings. Some were bright blue, some grayish blue, the difference between males and females. Some were flying around while others were sitting, puffed up against the cold wind. Some where on the ground. There was a lot of bluebird action along that fence. A whole flock, with their orange and white fronts and blue backs, completely out of place in the gray world I’d accepted. I found myself smiling. I hadn’t been smiling before seeing the Eastern Bluebirds. You never know when a wild place will throw you a curve.
