The Only Other Mulberry Eaters in DC

When I was in grad school back in Somerville, MA, I used to keep a close eye on the campus mulberry trees, hoping to be able to gather the fruit as it ripened and before the birds gobbled it all up. If the harvest was good and I was feeling generous, I would offer my crop to the members of the biology department. There, people would eye the berries suspiciously and ask me, “You can eat these?”, as if they feared they’d be the victims of a clever poisoning scheme (“Here, committee members, have some yew berries—they’re awfully tasty…And I’ve brought you some hemlock for dessert!”). Only the grad students from China and India recognized the berries as, you know, food—and accepted them with pleasure.

So it’s nice to see someone else enjoying the mulberries here, even if that someone isn’t a human but rather a spectacled-bear cub, one of two born just this year at the National Zoo:

(Unfortunately, the lens’ focus is on the mulberries—but then, that’s where the bear cub’s focus was, too.)