Monday, November 12, 2012

November 12: Blue birds, bleak sky

The other night I dreamt I saw three bluebirds together on a branch. Then I saw them in real life.

Yesterday I indulged in birding for the entire day, moving around the Midcoast to some of my favorite spots. I started off by spending several hours on Beech Hill, hiking all the trails, scanning fields and woods along the way. But the highlight of that outing was at the very beginning, when I was walking alongside the first, lower blueberry field. It was mown recently, and that seemed to have attracted a flock of bluebirds. The strikingly bright birds were foraging in the field, perching in trees in small clusters together along its edge, and even singing. On a bleak November morning with a frost-white sky, posed on leafless branches and amid sere, cropped blueberry plants, the bluebirds were easily the most vivid aspects of the landscape. I watched them for a long time, and when I finally looked away and continued on up the hill, I could hear their songs echoing behind me.

Even more beautiful
than birds in a dream--
bluebirds on bleak barrens.

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