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The sky is said to be a deeper and purer blue in October than in any other month of the year. I believe it. As the green world turns to gold the sky seems a deep and limitless blue, as blue as a bluebird.
Thinking of bluebirds set me to remembering. Lee Trott and I recently drove the long lane into the home of Jack and Marianna Alcock near Marshall. Perhaps SO bluebirds darted up in front of the car and scattered into the fields. That flock of Eastern Bluebirds-gave me a good and positive feeling.
For once man has corrected his mistakes — the mistake of overuse of pesticides and the introduction of the European Starling and House Sparrow into the United States to compete with bluebirds for nesting cavities. Now everywhere I go in the Northern Piedmont I see nest boxes on fence posts.
Bluebirds are doing well. In October they gather in companionable flocks to feed on berries and the abundance of pre-frost insect life.
To do in October — gather long, pendulous clumps of purple pokeweed berries, place them in plastic bags, and pop them into the freezer. In January and February, when temperatures are well below freezing and the world covered by ice and snow, put the purple berries out for wintering bluebirds. The equivalent for me would be a ripe tomato bathed by the August sun. One year I did this and a Hermit Thrush appeared to eat the berries.
Recently I saw a great white bird at the edge of a pond along route 522, just west of Flint Hill. It was an American Egret, another proof that mistakes of the past can be reversed. Both the American, and its smaller relative, the Snowy Egret were shot to
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