“And when you look into her eyes, you see what you want, when everything was undone, every field was open nothing was impossible yet, for the kid with the butterfly net.” — Graham Parker

During a recent traveling conversation, the confessional voice of a 12-year-old rolled up over the top of the driver’s seat and corkscrewed its way down into his ears.

As he continued to steer, watching the roadway ahead, the realization slowly washed over him of what she had just said, “I’ve never seen a blue jay before.”

While his mind rolled back to his childhood days of sandboxes and snakes, frogs and turtles, fish and freeze pops, he could only mumble back, “What?”

“You’ve seen a blue jay before,” her mother said.

“Only in pictures in books,” the tween replied.

“We’ll show you a blue jay,” the driver said.

As the miles passed, he drove silently confronted with the young girl’s claim.

In his childhood, he had discovered early a deep fascination with a series of children’s books, published in the 1940s and 50s on everything from butterflies and moths, seashores and pond life, to insects, rocks and minerals, trees and especially, birds.

Countless hours were spent staring at the beautiful, but simple, colored bird illustrations of James Gordon Irving inside the 150 or so pages of the pocket-sized booklet simply titled “Birds.”

The book packed a great deal of information into its small space.

There were range maps showing where each species occurred, information tables on migration, eggs and food, a diagram detailing the parts of a bird, sections on bird classification, attracting birds, amateur birdwatching activities, places to look for birds, creating a refuge for birds, bird banding and more.

The text posed the question: “Why look?”

“When a person is really interested, there’s nothing like the thrill of seeing a beautiful bird, identifying a species you have never seen before, and watching your records (of sightings) grow,” the book said.

Like poring over the Dead Sea Scrolls in hopes of unlocking great mysteries of life, the driver had spent a good part of his young childhood days absorbing everything he could from this text.

Following suggestions from the volume he had fashioned a water drip to attract birds by using a hammer and nails to punch holes in the bottom of an old coffee can and, filling it with water, he hung it from a branch.

Inside these pages, not far from the captivating illustration of a mockingbird sitting on a blackberry branch and another image showing a tree swallow perched, overlooking tall green grass and a cattail stem, was the blue jay.

“No other eastern bird is like the noisy blue jay, with its striking blue, black and white color,” the entry read.

Simple and easy for a child to read and understand, while at the same time, leading him or her with these breadcrumbs of description, to a real-life spectacle whose beauty is truly indescribable.

Like a color sample chart for painting a house blue, all those colors in some fashion are visible when looking at the incredible plumage of a blue jay.

Thinking more about the claim of his young friend, the driver realized she was likely by no means alone in her condition of never having seen a blue jay.

Blue jays are generally found only east of the Rocky Mountains. That means plenty of kids and adults growing up in America have likely never seen one. What a shame.

Next, he thought about the budding interest of the young miss revealed in deciding to announce her claim. Who can tell what this might lead to?

There are many people, affected by nature around this age in their lives who have gone on to advance science or do other remarkable things.

In his childhood, Fred Urquhart wondered where the beautiful monarch butterflies go during the dead of winter. His curiosity eventually led to his discovering the migration paths of monarchs, which trail from as far north as southern Canada to central Mexico.

An online biography of Roger Tory Peterson, father of the well-known Peterson Field Guide Series on birds and numerous other subjects, said that at age 11 birds “took over” Peterson’s life, after an experience he had in seventh grade.

While hiking with a friend, the two boys “spotted a seemingly lifeless clump of brown feathers on a tree, low to the ground.”

The clump was a sleeping yellow-shafted flicker.

“I poked it and it burst into color, with the red on the back of its head and the gold on its wing. It was the contrast, you see, between something I thought was dead and something so alive,” Peterson said. “Like a resurrection. I came to believe birds are the most vivid reflection of life. It made me aware of the world in which we live.”

A few days after the car ride, the driver sat at the kitchen table looking out at a group of white-crowned and white-throated sparrows hopping around inside a brush pile, scratching for seeds.

Suddenly, the sparrows scattered quickly when a blue flash darted over the bushes and stopped in the lower branches of a tree.

“There’s a blue jay,” the driver announced.

“Where,” came a familiar voice from an upstairs bedroom, followed by the sound of feet bounding down the staircase.

Moments later, gazing at the exquisite bird, she said simply and excitedly, “Cool.”

Since that day, the blue jay has appeared regularly outside the kitchen window.

She and her sister, who is of the same age and whose favorite color is blue, seem to remain intrigued by each visit of the bird and they are delighted to see it.

Editor’s note: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.