The bird photographer soon learns that this pastime offers brief triumphs amid long stretches of tedium and disappointment.  I had traveled around western Oklahoma for two days, mostly experiencing the latter.  The landscape of wheat fields and rolling grassland that extend to the horizon held few birds.  All were remarkably wary.           
         The little backwater hamlet of Fort Supply, population 328 and dwindling, was sere and brown on this cold sunny January day.  Quickly leaving behind its grain elevator and boarded-up storefronts, I headed toward Woodward, passing by the Cooper Wildlife Management Area.
          On impulse, with nothing better to do, I turned the car around, entered the reserve and soon came to a manager’s residence, complete with metal storage barns and trees struggling to survive in a dry climate and relentless wind.
          At once I saw them.  A flock of 50 – 100 Mountain Bluebirds, feeding on the ground under an aged juniper tree.  I think it was the stark contrasts that made the scene most memorable:  the deep blue sky; the drab ochre landscape; the brisk cold wind.  And these brilliant blue avian jewels, as lively and vivacious as the surroundings were dreary.
          Twittering among themselves, they would feed for a while, then for reasons known only to bluebirds, take flight en masse and swirl about in the clear sky, now alighting on the fence surrounding the compound.  Soon they would work their way along the fence back toward the juniper and my car.