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Pigeon-watching hotspots to see around town #11: Broadway at 7th St. (sub-) flock.

 

This flock has been establishing itself as a more prominent feature of 7th St., off of Broadway, since the city put in bike lanes and pedestrian islands. Prior to that, for at least several months, the intersection had been fenced off completely, at times, due to the construction, job site that was situated in this part of town. 

The flock is most likely a sub-feature of the more well-trafficked Broadway flock, at 5th, between 5th and 6th. There, the owner of a shop hands out a 5 pound bag of bird seeds every day, going on many years, now - which is sufficient to feed the dozens and dozens of birds there, and their friends, sometimes (the Broadway flock flies over to Pershing Square, and back and forth, at least a few times per day). A lot of the birds situate themselves at Pershing Square for much of the day, since that’s one of my daily pigeon-feeding flocks that I visit daily, and I also have food for them. 

This flock is moderately sized, with perhaps 2 dozen or so pigeons. Here, there is a newspaper and noticias vendor that tends to them. The flock is a nice feature of the corner, and the birds liven up the heavily foot-trafficked pedestrian intersection of Broadway at 7th, in Downtown LA.

The vendor’s station, at Broadway at 7th.

Pigeons Amongst the Almond Blossoms (painted picture).

 I’d mentioned before that I had become fond of Van Gogh’s Almond Blossoms painting, which I became aware of from encountering the likeness of the image on a nightlight, which I got off of Amazon Vine. Here, at the nursing facility where I now stay, there’s an activity room, for doing crafts and for getting on the internet, or just a computer, for residents that don’t have access, otherwise. One of the managers here encouraged me to do some paintings, since they have canvasses and watercolors, here. This is my third painting that I’ve done here, and it’s the first painting that I really sort of took seriously, in doing my best to fill in all of the white of the canvas, like a standard painting would have. I think that it came out well; I’d previously done an impressionist art adaptation of Van Gogh’s Starry Starry Night in polymer clay, which I textured with a pin, to imitate the impasto technique that Van Gogh is famous for. Here’s the image:

Pigeon-watching hotspots to see around town #10: Figueroa at 4th St. Underpass flock

This flock is a delight to visit (for me, at least, because I'm training them). They are currently (October 2024) becoming trained on the clicker, for "come." One of the birds swooped down in front of me, just earlier, today, as I arrived. I was positioned in an unfamiliar place, for feeding's sake, so it was especially flattering that the bird recognized me by the clicker. 

Some of the pigeon flock at Figueroa at 4th St. Underpass. 

This flock is particularly charming for its resilience in the face of challenges. Several of the birds (much more than by averages of other flocks) have visible battle scars, in the form of deformed and swollen feet, from having string tied around their feet, by former trappers that frequented the area, although they're here no longer, I seem to notice. I'm not well-versed in trapping the pigeons, to save them from their plight, at this time. I just show up and feed them. You can check out some of their quaint and isolated behaviors (although fairly common fare, for pigeons; I just felt that they could be a control flock, eventually, in psychological terms, with their progress and development in mind, on account of their isolation) in some video footage I captured while socializing my deceased pigeon friend that I brought along, and wrote an article on, a couple of weeks ago, below. 

Here, you can see my pigeon friend is being investigated by one of the males in the Figueroa at 4th St. Underpass flock's regular members.

Regardless of being new to the place, my pigeon friend felt right at home with the new birds, and he took to some sharing of the same meal as the other birds, while we visited. 

This bird, (unnamed, so far) is one of the more charming of the flock. He had a broken leg happen to him, several months ago, and it hasn't quite healed properly, but he could potentially heal up and be just fine, some day. 

The location is fairly quiet, lately, and, as I noted, isolated, but it's ideal if you happen to show up with food for the birds, and you can spot them roosting on the light poles. They'll swoop down and accept food, if they spot you tossing some out, in many cases. If you have a clicker, that's even better, because they're becoming trained on clicker noises. 

Autumn 2025 updates:

I’d been coming here regularly, now, for perhaps 2 years. The flock has stayed a fairly steady 12 core resident birds, here (the birds here are partially learned helplessness subjects, but, for example, as I arrived, today, the birds were out for a flight, so I suppose that they have somewhere to go, when they want to, or, perhaps, when they need to, which they don’t, really, since the flock here is relatively isolated from other flocks nearby that I know about. Regardless, in the summertime, I observed that, on one day, there were about 20 birds present, so that could have been their young, that had moved out, to live somewhere else, and they returned home to the cool enclave where they roost - a shady spot that’s practically impervious to heat waves. 

Some of the flock had returned, since I started writing this update:

I like this flock, in particular, because of its isolation - there’s rarely any humans that visit or frequent the location, and it’s kind of a cozy connection to have, knowing that they (probably) largely depend on me showing up, for their meal times. There used to be a homeless encampment here, and some of the birds here show signs of having been trapped, previously. Fortunately, none of them are too badly maimed, just some lost toes, here and there, and one crooked-legged pigeon. I also like this flock because sometimes they’ll spot me walking up, from a distance, and they’ll fly out to greet me, knowing that I’ll feed them.

 

Halloween Hijinks Involving Pigeons, 2025.

 This Halloween saw a number of pigeon hijinks on my Facebook, but what about from other folks? Here are some of the art pieces and notable mentions that went down, this past Halloween.

PBS Documentary: How Pigeons Thrive in the City | The Pigeon Hustle.

 

Product Review: Viture Pro XR/AR Glasses.

 

Me, wearing the Viture Pro XR/AR Glasses set I purchased.

These days, XR and AR experiences, along with spatial computing, are some of the newest technologies hitting the consumer market, with the Apple Vision Pro M5 having just launched, and with a small array of competing vision products, such as glasses, which provide some semblance of what's possible with the Vision Pro. 

I had first experienced the Viture XR/AR glasses at a user test study, about a year ago, or so. In short, the glasses are somewhat like sunglasses, and they have miniature displays in each of the two lenses, which provide a huge, expansive screen space, which the user looks at, from an up close positioning. Viture's glasses come with a great feature for people with nearsightedness - there's a myopia correction dial for each lens, to adjust the image for sharpness, which really helps out.

The miniature displays inside the glasses are vaguely viewable from a distance, and they are meant to be seen up close, where the displays appear to be a large, wide screen that mirrors or extends the desktop of your computer or mobile device.

What's the experience like? Well, for starters, it's basically like looking at a projection screen, based on the size of the viewable space. On my laptop, I chose to mirror the desktop, rather than extend it, so I could have all of the features of the dock, my apps, and my windows, all available to me, in a laptop-relatable format. The glasses function nicely as an extended (mirrored) display device, and I've been using the laptop's keyboard and trackpad to control the pointer, and to do my work, browse the internet, etc. Compared to a traditional display, I would say that this miniaturized, and, yet, a blown up display, within this small device, is a better buy - users can work on their device, while having the head positioned in any way that's comfortable, so it's better for the posture. It helps alleviate pain caused by bending over to view the display on a laptop, when I'm working on my bed, for example, where there's not a better solution available for positioning the computer. The displays, themselves, within the glasses, are a suitable resolution for managing multiple window workspaces, making the glasses a competitive choice over extending the display by adding a traditional desktop monitor, so it solves a desktop space consideration

nicely, as well.

It's a bit difficult to fully explain the experience, or to demonstrate it, sufficiently, but it's somewhat similar to the photo pictured above. All in all, it's a nifty large screen to have, that's easy on the eyes, despite that it's such a large viewing space at such a close range. For the price (I got mine on sale, on eBay), I would definitely prefer the glasses over a traditional display, a portable display, or projection setup. It's just more convenient, and it conserves space in what would otherwise be a more crowded room. They're a great solution for people who prefer to work in bed, or on the couch, I'd say.