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One fall day Don and Nan visited the park.
They heard some birds. So they sat near a vine and were quiet.
Before long the birds flew to the vine. They found some dark berries on the vine and ate many of them.
They were bluebirds. They liked insects to eat but they liked berries very much, too. They had a happy time in the vine.
Don and Nan knew the bluebirds. They had watched the old birds go in and out of a box on a tree where they had a nest in the spring.
Father and Mother Bluebird did not look the same in the fall as they did in the spring. Their feathers were a little different.
The spring feathers dropped out and new feathers grew.
Father Bluebird had blue feathers with brown tips on his head and back. His breast was red. He had white under feathers near his legs.
The colors of Mother Bluebird were not so bright. Her head and back were gray.
When the young bluebirds first came out of the nest they had white spots on their backs and brown spots on their breasts.
Now the young bluebirds looked much like their father and mother. They were ready to go South for the winter with the old birds.
Uncle Tom told Don and Nan about the feather coats of bluebirds.
"In the fall some of their new feathers have brown tips," he said. "So their coats are not very bright.
"Before spring the brown tips will be rubbed off. Then the other colors of the feathers can show.
"That is why Father Bluebird looks so very blue in the spring."
"What a queer kind of coat!" said Don. "It is not so pretty when it is new as when it is old."