Today, this gray, early November day, I went into the woods and where trees meet an overgrown meadow, I saw a Lazuli Bunting. Blue on top, white and orange in front. Sitting in a bush. Huh. A Lazuli Bunting. Now that’s something to report.
But the truth is…..c’mon, you know the truth, right?…..it wasn’t a Lazuli Bunting. It was an Eastern Bluebird. A late hanger-on, since cold’s coming and the Bluebirds head south around now. (Although I’ve seen a few over the winter, in recent years). So why’d I call it a Lazuli Bunting?
Once, a few months ago, I heard a guy in a bird club talking about a Lazuli Bunting in that meadow. I worked my way over there, alone, and all I saw was an Eastern Bluebird. But I couldn’t really blame the guy. Look in a bird book or on a bird website. It’s an honest mistake. Forget, for the moment, that the Lazuli Bunting’s a western bird, and that it’s skinnier, and that it’s got wing bars. Forget all that and imagine you see it on a bush, and you’ve got a book that groups blue colored birds, and you get excited. Hey, Lazuli Bunting, tell everyone. Yeah—probably not.
So when I see an Eastern Bluebird in this old familiar meadow I say, hmmm, the Bunting’s back. My private joke. But sometimes I think—what if the joke’s on me? Could that bird club guy have been right? What if his bird was a thousand miles out of its range? What if it happened to be sitting where our Eastern Bluebirds sit? What if it really was a Lazuli Bunting? And what if it stays around sometimes, this lost western bird, well into November. What if? Anyway, I saw it today.
