Cambridge, Mass.
1915.
March 28

Blue Jays in the Garden
Eating Nightshade berries.

  Blue Jays have frequented our grounds all
winter in numbers varying from two or three to six or
eight. They have subsisted mostly on bread thrown
out for them or for the Squirrels and have been seen
eating the fruit of Parkman's apple in company with Flickers
and Purple Finches. One that I watched this morning ate
the pulp of two nightshade berries, after pecking them to
pieces very deliberately, thereby making more than "two bites"
of each. This happened directly beneath my study windows
in a thicket of rhododendrons constantly haunted of 
late by two Jays, evidently a mated pair. They spend
much of their time perched close together on twigs only
a foot or two above the ground and within two yards
of the window, thereby enabling me to watch them
to excellent advantage. For two weeks or more
I have heard one of them, presumably, the male, singing