Pasture Guests: Bluebirds

"If happy little bluebirds fly

Beyond the rainbow

Why, oh, why, can't I?"

Over the Rainbow, 1939

Usually, it's the baby calves who are the main attraction in the pasture south of our house. (We are up to 67 calves born this winter on the County Line. And they are mighty cute!)

 

But on a spring-like February day, it was the vibrant blue of birds gliding and zipping with wings to match the morning sky. As Henry David Thoreau observed:

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

Thoreau's Journal, April 3, 1852

Randy saw them as he fed in the pasture and came to the house to retrieve me and my camera. Once in awhile, they'd perch on dried weeds and grasses, daring me to try and capture them with my little camera. Most of the shots were out of focus. A telephoto lens would have helped. But a few were good enough to share.
 
An article in Mother Earth News had this to say about bluebirds: 

Everybody loves a bluebird. No other bird is featured more often in our prose, poetry, and song. The bluebird is the cheery little guy on your shoulder as you sing zip-a-dee-doo-dah. Bluebirds fly somewhere over the rainbow. But there is substance, not just lyrical literature, behind our fondness for bluebirds. They have earned their place in our hearts.

Bluebirds occur only in North America. European settlers called them “blue robins,” because the birds’ size reminded them of English robins. Comparatively scarce in pre-Colonial days, the American bluebird thrived as pioneers cleared forests and plowed fields, creating the open, woodland-edged habitat they favor. Orchards and field crops served up concentrations of tasty insects. Bluebirds nest in tree cavities, and farmers furnished housing by surrounding their fields with cavity-prone wood fence posts. At the turn of the 20th century, bluebirds were common in much of rural America, and even nested in urban residential areas.

Mother Earth News, 2010

The nearly all-sky-blue colored Mountain Bluebird is a winter resident in Kansas. Mountain Bluebirds breed across western North America as far north as Alaska. They spend winters as far south as central Mexico. Migrating flocks may consist of 20 to 200 birds. We estimate there were at least 30 of the bluebirds in our pasture on February 13.

From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

The mountain bluebird shares much of the western bluebird’s summer range, but occupies open habitat — mountain meadows, high hills, and plains. (Cornell)

Advice from a Bluebird

Rise early.

Spread a little happiness.

Keep a song in your heart.

Think spring.

Be colorful.

Feather your nest with friendships.

The sky's the limit!

--Anonymous 

Just as quickly as they arrived, they had moved on. We went out to the pasture the very next day and didn't see one bluebird. It's a lesson in capturing moments when you can. Otherwise, they fly away ... sometimes, literally.

Today, any bluebirds in Kansas may face a snow storm. Here's hoping they find shelter from the storm.

Be like the bluebird who never is blue,
For he knows from his upbringing what singing can do
- Cole Porter, Be Like the Bluebird, 1934

Click here to hear their call.