Tuesday Bird Photo: Indigo Bunting

The other weekend, my husband and I walked all around the Yorktown battlefield. Battlefields are remarkably devoid of life, generally, which is, I guess, pretty ironic. One can go around with a park ranger to hear all about the battle lines and charges and retreats and such and see the movies with still pictures or re-enactments in the museum, but outside all one sees are quiet, empty fields and lumps of ground that were "earthworks" with a trench on one side.

Still, we did see some birds and butterflies in the shrubby areas around the battlefield's edges. I managed to catch this indigo bunting - a bright fluttering blue spot in an otherwise sea of stillness and green - just as it was doing one of those nanosecond landing/takeoff again maneuvers. They are lovely birds, not raucous like jays, and less flamboyant than their cousins the painted buntings. I've seen a number of the indigos here in Virginia, and so I consider them local beauties.