It was just a blur at first, a flurry of activity in the trees outside my living room window. Indistinct flashes of muted color among the branches, a tiny body lighting on a twig here and there, and then it was gone. Just the chickadees, juncos and titmice, I thought, after what seed is left out there on the ground once the turkeys and squirrels have had their fill. Not that watching those particular creatures is any the less entertaining. It is, but then again, so was what I was reading that day.

Yet, something nagged at me on that frigid January morning and kept drawing my attention away from what I was doing. I realized finally that a new color had insinuated itself into that moving and ever-shifting image of feathers and beaks, something blue and borrowed and that is not usually part of the avian drama hereabouts at this time of year. The level of frenetic energy was the same, as were the back-and-forth movements among the denuded branches, bare, that is, except for the few bittersweet berries that still hung from the now-dormant vines. And that’s what the attraction proved to be for a small flock of eastern bluebirds that were hard at work harvesting the last of those red gems which were by that time frozen solid like everything else around them.

The eastern bluebird is a wondrous little thing, not much larger than a titmouse but of a color that is pure delight. While its size and movements replicate that of many other small songbirds, the bluebird sports brilliant colors that are part summer sky, part warm soil. And seeing one in winter is a special treat, as they’re not usually around here much this time of year. If they are, they’re off in search of the sustenance that, like their cousins the American robins, keeps them coming back at the most unlikely moments.

As long as there were berries to be had, the bluebirds kept coming. I saw them a few more times after that and was even treated to watching them at my birdfeeder a few times, too. There were only two or three at first. But as so often happens in the bird world, a few more showed up later, most likely having been alerted to the bittersweet bounty by the first explorers. It didn’t take long for them to make a clean sweep of it, and then off they went to parts unknown where hopefully they found more treats to sustain them through the prolonged cold snap.

The eastern bluebird is a perfect example of how everything in nature is connected, visually and at more fundamental levels as well. The colors we see in plants are often carried over into the vibrant shades of a bird’s plumage, and vice versa. Roses the color of a cardinal’s feathers, brook waters reflecting the hues of a blue jay’s plumage, sunflowers joining in the bright yellow song of the goldfinch, and the sky dripping its color onto the bluebird’s back…Which came first, the chicken or the egg, the bluebird’s or the sky’s blue, the lemon’s or the goldfinch’s plumage?

I like to think of it as one vast blank background upon which a nameless faceless artist tossed a palette of color with Jackson Pollock abandon. Streaks and swaths and shards and splashes in no apparent pattern, some still and others flitting about sharing the bounty, spreading the paint to the four corners of our world.

And the bluebird’s gift? Why, lifting some of the azure color lurking behind those gloomy gray clouds and depositing it on a branch outside my window, and just when I needed it most.