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This cute pigeon pair shows up together, for a meal, after one of them scouts out the ledge, to make sure there’s food out. That’s when I spot them and put seeds out for them. |
Helping make pigeons our friends in Downtown Los Angeles, CA, USA + iPigeon tech, lifestyle, commentary, and art.
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Today, at the library, there were nearly twice the amount of pigeons that had shown up. |
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Some of the long(er) row of pigeons that I encountered, while visiting the library, today. |
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Quickly, a crowd arrives, awaiting a meal, along with some water, provided along with the buttered cinnamon sugar bread I had prepared, for the day. |
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Today's mealtime was more crowded than typical. Will tomorrow see the same new birds show up? |
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Sleepy Pigeon typically shows up, across from the restroom, where he perches, for the afternoon, or evening. Here, he finds peaceful rest, and, since I met him, he also gets fed here, at the window. |
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A crowd of pigeons flocks to the window on my side of the building, since they'd discovered that there's food here, sometimes. |
I don't get on (or off) on this Metro train station all that often, but recently, I spotted a refugee flock of pigeons hanging out, here, at the parking lot across the street. Since I was stocked up on bread (some of it was bread with butter), I knew that I couldn't let this flock of birds down; they hadn't always been here, and they may have been on their way in or out of town, to have gathered here.
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The DTLA Pico Metro Station parking lot, featuring a large flock of pigeons. |
In any case, these birds, some of them a localized flock, whom had been spotted perching atop the luxury highrise buildings across the street, potentially had an advantageous view of the terrain, while they perched, and they could have seen other nearby flocks that had been gathering in other micro-locales of DTLA. Pigeons are made for socialization - the more, the merrier, so to speak. When the flock flies off, sometimes it's a "high-flying" motive about them, where they swoop and swing around, in spirals and in circles, or in figure 8-style, for the sake of quickly drawing attention to themselves, high-flying, as it were, so that nearby and known perching flocks, of a different micro-locale, can catch them high-flying, as a signal of that something exciting is going on, around this commotion, such as meal time. The other nearby flocks would be the ones by the Olympic at Olive Shell Gas Station, the 26th Street / Orthopedic Institute "USC Dumpster Pigeons," and, also, perhaps, some birds from around 7th at Metro Station. There's a chance that these flocks had become neglected, and the newcomers wanted to try out this location, on account of so much foot traffic at the Pico Metro Station. I made sure to look out for this flock again, the next time I rode by, but they weren't there, so I'll have to figure out their schedule, and try to fit them in, sometimes, during the course of a week.
This flock would be an ideal one for sports fans to visit, being that L.A. Live, the Crypto.com Sports Arena, and the Convention Center are all very nearby attractions for pedestrians, which have frequent and regular events happening.
The birds are a fairly standard flock of Downtown LA: they're not completely shy, and they know that some people will toss them food, if they're visible to passersby.
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The Pico Metro Station Refugee Pigeon Flock, enjoying a meal, on April 19th, 2024, at 3:43 p.m. |
This flock would be a good one for people to patronize during the springtime (now) season, throughout summer and in to fall, I suppose, being that it's light out, and pigeons in this area will, most commonly, stay out until 6:30 p.m., while the sun is still out. I just recently found out that pigeons love peanuts 🥜, by the way, so that's a nice and convenient snack food to have on hand for them (or, if you hadn't prepared, beforehand, there's a CVS right across the street.
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This flock is a somewhat special flock, for demonstrating trusting behaviors, up to this point in time, although I’ve the same behaviors, previously, in some of the other flocks in town - it’s that the flocks become subjected to inappropriate human interventions in their populations by drugging them, catching them, and apparently, intentionally torturing and abusing them by tying strings around their feet and legs. It’s a travesty that this sort of behavior, by people, is still happening, but I’m committed to seeing to it, of that the birds continue to be fed and, with time, I expect that people will refrain from victimizing the town’s birds. It’s currently unknown “just who” is factually perpetrating these crimes, and I’m hoping to raise awareness and seek community solidarity, over time, in assisting in protecting the birds from intentional abuses, for observing the birds’ natural beauty, such as I have captured on video, today, and for recognizing their intrinsic worth as a locality attraction and for the potential of birds to touch people’s lives in perhaps unexpected and transformational ways.
I'm at the end of my food supply for the birds, out here, in Downtown Los Angeles, and it's been a rough patch for this flock,over the past week, in my care and watch over them, which I'd been making sure to get to. I do 4 flock areas, in Downtown Los Angeles, when I come out here.
(Update): I had recalled that I found a container of some sort of rich beef soup, and I gave it to them. This past week, it seemed as that there might have been some people present, in the nearby vicinity, and the birds weren't perching at their regular location, in a notch, under the underpass bridge. The birds were super excited to get some food in them, as this spot is most typically my last stop, in visiting the birds of DTLA.
This baby pigeon is developing a notable curious personality around his human caretakers. See some of the developments of him and the flock, after they settle in, for a bit, after a meal, when they mingle about and show off their virtues, as birds, in preening themselves. It is both social hour and development time, in the nurturing environment setting, and with how intelligent birds can be, attaining a publicly-accessible wild-to-domesticated flock characteristic seems to be within reach, given some dedication over the coming years.
Just today, I rescued this baby pigeon from having string tied around his feet. He was trusting enough to allow me to nab him and hold him close to me, as I carefully removed the string around his feet. Fortunately, the string wasn’t that tight. It symbolizes a significant milestone in the flock’s collective tameness and trust, which is, essentially, a call for mercy and grace for the pigeons, outside of the times in which I am present and feeding them. Desiring to own the birds, as they become more near to what would considerably be a pet, is an obvious lure, for some, in having little experience in handling birds, yet it takes efforts of some and various sorts, in public relations, I would imagine, in establishing appropriate boundaries and rational considerations for what’s best for ourselves, as well as the birds of DTLA; here, the location is Pershing Square, where I’m giving a relatively large and common flock of birds food, water, and socialization care, several times a week, or every day that I can do this task.
The older birds will never attain domesticity amongst humans. This is the important thing to keep in mind. The foundling period, post-nestling phase, of the ecology of the flocks and breeding pairs of birds, is a most vulnerable time in the pro-sociable health and development of the flocks of pigeons. In this stage, in a pigeon’s life, the babies come out to eat and explore, with feeding the birds, and watering them, being the traditional and formal greeting of the flock for humans. In this small locality (Pershing Square), an afternoon feeding is common, and on occasions where I had stuck around, for a while, a venturesome squirrel appears, and he enjoys a slice of bread, as well.
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Curious baby pigeon stands out, amongst the crowd. |
For those of you who don’t follow along on my Twitter so much, I’ll update you on my latest developments of the day. I started working on the curious baby pigeon stands out amongst the crowd vectorized, posterized, film noir stylized ink brush illustration [and subsequent print out, for display], and it’s looking fabulous, after about 6 1/2 hours work put in to it.
One of my favorite fan art themes is the dingo and pigeon sharing a smoke, while the bird is perched on top of dingo’s head. In doing some ...