Bluebirds!

Each spring the Western Bluebirds return, to mate, nest, and raise the next generation. For five or six years we have kept “bluebird boxes” — next boxes of exactly the right size, shape, and hole to attract them.

This afternoon, while walking the dogs, I saw a male bluebird — resplendent — in our front yard, perched on a tree that used to be near where one of our bluebird boxes was attached to the trunk of a pine tree. This particular box had fallen off sometime in the winter, and I had not yet put it back up. In my imagination, that bluebird was reproaching my sloth. So I went back into my workshop and came back with some good, long lag screws and a wrench, and I hung the box back up.

As I walked back to our house, I turned to look for the bluebird — and he was already perched on the bluebird house! I think it must be the same male that was here last year…