At Random for Feb. 3, 2012

Anticipation is pleasure of bird watching

My Aunt Eunice, who’s 94, hasn’t been feeling well lately, so she spends her time in a bed that overlooks several backyard bird feeders.

Age and illness can make a mind retreat into better days when one was stronger, younger and free of pain, and there are hours when my aunt roves backward through time, keeping pleasant company with the person she used to be, the friends she once had, relatives she once loved.

But with the occasional arrival of a finch or cardinal or sparrow beyond her window, my aunt can once again seat herself in the present moment, her attention tethered, if only fleetingly, to the feathered companions who brighten her convalescence.

Eunice’s father, my Grand-father Heitman, was a poor farmer and father of 10, but in the midst of many worries, he made the time to post a bluebird house around his farm and monitor it for visitors.

Watching for bluebirds is something of a family tradition.

Not long ago, before she became so frail, Eunice passed a nice day with her nephew, Perry, as they drove around looking for bluebirds. None revealed themselves, or so I was told, but this lack of luck did nothing to blunt Eunice’s pleasure in the day’s excursion.

With bird watching, as with fishing or hunting or football, anticipation itself is the sweetest reward, even when the anticipation goes unfulfilled.

In the same way that some people are ashamed to admit that they’ve never read “Huckleberry Finn” or flown a kite, I’m reluctant to publicly confess that I’ve never seen a bluebird in the flesh.

My only grasp of them comes from pictures I’ve glanced, such as the ones in my Peterson field guide.

Last month, as part of a Scout project, my son built a bluebird house that we’ll soon mount in our backyard. If this house is like the others we’ve hung, it will, over time, make a cozy home for the squirrel that widens its entry portal with its evil little teeth and sets up residence.

We have no luck drawing bluebirds to our place because the yard is small and enclosed, and bluebirds usually like open spaces.

They thrived on the farms that dotted America before suburbs and shopping malls replaced so many of the fields our ancestors once plowed.

We hang bluebird houses in our yard for the same reason that people hang horseshoes over a doorpost for good luck. It’s a ceremonial gesture, really, one that does no harm, and comes with no real expectation of results.

To see a real bluebird, which I hope to do this year, I’ll have to get in a car as my aunt once did, and go out scouting for the open places that yet remain, as they remain in memory for a farm girl who’s now an old woman in a bed, waiting for birds to alight near her window.

Advocate editorial writer Danny Heitman contributes “At Random” to the People section each Friday. He welcomes your comments and suggestions. Contact him at [phone] or [e-mail].