Massachusetts Audubon Society 5 



MELROSE BIRDS RETURN 



November 18, 1921. 



Editor Bulletin of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, 

 66 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts. 



Dear Sir:—! was much pleased with the article in November Bulletin 

 regarding return of birds and it may interest your readers to learn my 

 experience in this matter. 



At my Melrose home, for three consecutive summers, I cared for a 

 robin who had lost all the toes of his left foot, his left leg simply being a 

 1 straight leg much like a tooth pick. I was first attracted to him by noticing 

 that when he drew a fish worm out of the ground he would tip away over 

 on one side and after some weeks of feeding him, I noted that when he tried 

 to pull a fish worm out, the leg without any toes would go away down pretty 

 near to his body in the soft turf and this is what caused him to practically 

 tip over when he was working about my lawn. 



The last summer he was so tame that I would dig fish worms and he 

 would come up within a foot of my hand to pick them up. 



For several years I had a robin's nest in exactly the same location in a 

 white birch tree that was so near my piazza that I could stand on the upper 

 piazza and look directly into the nest. Most seasons two families were 

 raised in the same nest and I am very sure that it was the same family of 

 robins because the last year or two they practically paid no attention to my 

 looking into the nest nearly every day, taking photographs of it, etc. 



The tree became so broken in the heavy snow two winters ago that it 

 had to be cut down and the next spring at nesting time there were three or 

 four robins fussing around that end of the piazza for several days evidently 

 looking for the tree in which to build their nest. 



I have also had a great deal of pleasure for many years in watching a 

 group of blue jays who nest in some apple trees in the neighborhood but who 

 regularly come to my squirrel-cage in the front of the house to pick up corn 

 and seeds. About this time of year they come regularly every morning for 

 their breakfast because I keep ears of corn and suet hanging in several 

 places for them. I am very sure that these blue jays all come from the 

 same family because they invariably go to a special place on my squirrel- 

 cage and if there is not enough corn there for them, they will stand and 

 holler for it. 



It is also worth noting that on Sunday mornings, when we sometimes 

 sleep later than usual, they will come to the cage at about their usual hour 

 — 7 o'clock — and fuss around it, hollering most of the time until I get up 

 and feed them. In fact they have become so much a part of my place that 

 they are known all around the neighborhood as "Shum way's blue jays." 



Yours very truly, 



Franklin P. Shumway. 



