Near the end of last year, I witnessed a flock of Blue Jays in a stand of barren apple trees.  I’d never seen Jays travel in such a large group and so was amazed.  This spring, sitting on the back deck near the woods, a large flock of Jays suddenly flew overhead.  Later, the flock was at our bird feeders, twenty-five to thirty birds, making a home in the smoke bush.  For several days they stayed, giving me plenty of time to sketch them and enjoy their squawking company.  I could have made a print of Jays in the smoke bush, but my imagination kept pulling me back to the original sighting and those ragged apple trees in the eerie November half-light, rotting fruit by the hundreds on the ground.