Then one day, he saw one. The bird perched in a tree on the Cape Cod National Seashore, its unmistakable blue feathers glowing in the sunlight. He was just as mesmerized by the bird as he had been as a child.
“I never thought we would be reunited,’’ he said.
Benson, a retired bus driver and construction worker, now spends his life rescuing bluebirds in the same community he grew up in. He serves as an authoritative voice on bluebirding in New England for the North American Bluebird Society, a national community of bluebird lovers who joined together in 1977 to advocate for the bird’s survival. Benson has given everything he has to fight for the birds that captured his heart as a boy.
He is not the first person to be smitten by the bluebird. The birds’ cerulean back, fiery red breast, and soft, enchanting song have romanced people for generations. The bluebird, which is native to North America and about half the size of a robin, is often considered the quintessential American songbird — Thoreau wrote about them; Judy Garland and Paul McCartney sang about them.
But America nearly lost its beloved bird.
Frank Reindt, an expert in avian population at Harvard University, said that in the mid-1800s, boats full of European settlers arrived on American shores, bringing with them two more aggressive songbirds: the house sparrow and the European starling.
Both bluebirds and the non-native sparrows and starlings are cavity nesters, meaning they need to raise their young inside dead trees, or other hollow wooden areas. The introduction of the sparrow and starling made nesting cavities prime real estate, Reindt said.
“When competing for a nest with a starling, the bluebird will usually lose,’’ said Reindt. Sparrows are even known to invade bluebird nests and eat their eggs.
