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. 
 

Pigeon Journal Article / Thread of the Day № 2: Clicker Training.

 The first  entry in this set of serial / threaded entries, intended as an aide to the academic study (or abstract review, at minimum) of pigeons, or, perhaps broader contexts, such as poultry, or avians, as a whole. The sets of serial entries are gathered and examined for the sake of extending the knowledge base and references / resources available for the sake of bettering the flocks and understanding their progress, potential, and current status in behavior, learning, sensory experience, genetics, and other pertinent subject areas, as the threads and series sets procure added and new material for review and study. 

On this day, I brought out my animal training clicker (I have two), and I signalled to the bird flock outside the local public library, where the birds have become accustomed to being fed, when I show up and haunch myself up on the ledge, in front of their lofty perch, above. Subsequently, the birds have developed identification and discriminatory perceptive capabilities, and they have routinely adjusted their behavioral customs, progressing from observing and waiting for food to be thrown out, to predicting that food will be thrown out (by me), and, thus, they now demonstrate a more pro-sociable behavioral custom, in flying down, around me, in anticipation of being fed. Identification and discrimination (which will be my second entry, or "zero" entry, since I'll be referencing a past article and related practical study, dating back one day. I'm simply starting the series with the second day's thread) was the initial (first) thread, which I haven't written (yet), but, chronologically, that subject was first examined, for the sake of reference and documentation purposes, for this series on my blog. 

The psychology of babying the pigeon flock(s).

 Recently, on one of my grocery shopping trips, my jaunt was that I was set on making the ultimate milkshake, and I purchased some various component ingredients for this task to be seen through, to satisfactory completion. I can't recall all of the ingredients; perhaps it was a caramel milkshake that I had made purchases for. In any case, I made a scarcely ventured trip in to the world of corn syrup - in sodas, it's practically synonymous a concept to imagine, yet I found it rare to actually handle corn syrup, on it's own, in a bottle. So, I came out of the grocery store, and I fixed myself up, quick - a milkshake that would nearly do me in, as I quickly became sedate and somewhat faint, for havíng not much experience with how much corn syrup translates in to a reference amount of sugar. I just wanted to make the ultimate milkshake, as my outset perspective for this culinary journey and experiment with this new (to me) sugar product. I recall feeling a powerful nostalgia for the flavor of corn, and I imagined the marvels of modern agriculture, in manufacturing items such as corn oil - the oil of corn, itself, as well as corn syrup - the sugars of corn, with corn being at such a premium to purchase individually, over in my locale (ears of corn had been priced at 4/$3.00, for some time). Somehow, somebody, somewhere, had such an abundant, seemingly luxuriant amount of corn on hand, that products such as these ones noted, here, would wind up being modestly priced goods, considering the manufacture and product of corn, itself - the oil costing more than the syrup, being more scarce and difficult to extract (corn oil is, compared with other cooking oils, a more costly product, for those unfamiliar with these grocery items, on a personal level).

Nearly falling faint, from consuming such a rich amount of sugar, in such short order, in soluble form, was quite an experience. I'd already been familiarized, due to my medication regimen, with some transient and marginal comatose states of being, due to consuming sweet foods, which becomes so much more enticing, at times, in correlation with being tired. Consuming sweet pastries, or other snack-type items would do me in, during these times, for an unexpected and unscheduled day of rest, thus being a burly condition to try to conquer, being that my attitudes had shifted, in this recent phase of my life, hygienically speaking, from being upright and decent, in to slothful and lazy 🦥. This being the case, I would neglect to brush my teeth, giving my immune system and metabolism a strange and fateful set of contradictions and debacles, with such rich resources of calories and rewarding sweetness, in combination with an unconditioned signal for me, being that I, like many other young children, had been hyperactive on sweets, which were used as a reward mechanism, as well.

It had been some time, in my life, that this condition had been going on. I ended up losing some of my teeth, due to overly acidic conditions in my bloodstream and bruxism, and, at some point, I decided to switch the birds over to a similar diet, being that I'm positioned against stimuating the birds with drugs - I find it ostensibly confusing for the affected birds, who would lose sense of the discipline of the flock's daily and customary habits and routines. Yet, given this,I considered that the birds, both young and old, spend much of their days just "sitting around," so to speak, perched somewhere close to human foot traffic. In downtown Los Angeles, where I live, and care for these flocks, nearly any street corner and sidewalk is fair game for pigeons and sparrows to do their thing: showing up and "asking" for food (showing up, for city birds, ostensibly directly corresponds to seeking food from people). I decided to model the birds' diet on the ultimate milkshake experience, as a daily curated experience.

Sweet pastries potentially slightly sedate, yet also stimulate the birds' physiognomy, while providing a relaxing and tired affect of the birds. This diet has shown proven affections from the flocks, as the central library pigeons, whom had recently seen the flock's numbers practically double, now come down to greet me upon my arrival, as opposed to when I toss out food for them, which was their former state; these "states of tameness" are delicate and potentially transient shifts in the flock's behavior, if some alternate or inconsistent form of conditioning is applied, or if the flock is neglected. In any case, this current condition of the flock's sociability factor is a promising sign, on the road to hand-tameness. The flock had demonstrated this behavior in the past, as well

Pigeons are ideal subjects to impose an archetypal babying paradigm on, given that they're birds, and birds such as pigeons have a generally short attention span, except for their mating partners and baby pigeon chicks. As far as psychology is concerned, I like to develop a lot of "out front" (the temporal lobe)

Challenges in training wild pigeon flocks, and some corollaries.

 Just a moment ago, I happened upon reflecting, internally, upon a crossroads of various thoughts. One of them was the impermeability of my Chinese side in me: I thought about this, within the contexts of life coaching affecting personality shifts, and, with regards to animal training, and the difficulties that are inherent in working with wild birds. It is, after all, a Chinese saying: 

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

 Affecting such a sort of change, in a wild bird, compared to the standard, hands-off, keep away nature of birds, yet, in urban society, and, hence, with pigeons and other city birds in Los Angeles, CA, USA, it's still a rare occurrence to encounter a bird (pigeon) that is malleable and resilient enough to get close enough to a human who is postured and positioned for potentially putting hands on the bird. Birds of this sort (city type) are well-familiarized, typically, with the gestures and habits of humans - for certain, there are bird lovers abound, who care to be gentle and loving to the birds, and, on the other hand, there are much more shocking gestures of humans and their animals of chasing after the birds, or, outright frightening the birds, such as: mindlessly, or out of frustration. 

A pigeon decoy.

It is my experience with animals capable of higher intelligence, which are capable of being trained, that, absent of an early nurturing environment of singular human care, beyond a certain point, in the creature's infancy, the mind of the animal is fairly malleable, in adjusting the lifetime degree and measure of trust that the creature has, towards the caretaker. A traumatic experience in the animal's nurturing environment circumstances will tend to shape the creature's general attitudes and level of trust, as well as trainability of the animal, over a lifetime. I thought about all of this, momentarily, while lamenting a broken relationship or two, that had happened to me, in life. I thought about things, such as could I have done something more? I reflected upon deeper contexts of the issue that I draw relevance, here, between my life, and the flocks of pigeons that I try to tame, here in downtown LA, (I work on two flocks, in general, lately) for my amusement, and for the amusement of others, hopefully, in the future. I thought about my mother, who is Chinese. She brought me up of a relatively rigid and disciplined sort; I ended up an early bloomer, in some contexts, such as in school, and in dating, compared to some of my peers. My recurrent thoughts 💭 of my mother, lately, (absent of speaking directly to her) are fairly astute; that is to say that there's little variance between what I remember of her, and what goes on, in my thoughts that include her, now, in terms of her personality. We were very close, in our upbringing. On the other hand, my father was a less patient disciplinarian, and the imaginative thoughts I experience of him, now, tend more towards confusion and caprice, and it's moreso troubling sorts of things that go on. Mind you, this is all referring to things that happen in my mind about them, when I'm by myself. 

I draw this comparison between my relationship with my parents and the birds that I take care of, because it's a sort of parenting, to take care of a flock of birds, such as these pigeons. I also think up my available models of behavioral conditioning and nurturing environment expertise possible, given my own experiences; I consider the expertise of others, as well, such as in instances where I've sat in on trained-animal shows and installations, such as the small-parrot aviary at the San Diego Wild Animal Park's (they've changed names, since I've been, apparently) walk-through aviary that they had, where hand-tame small parrots would land on patrons and drink nectar out of little cups that visitors could purchase. I wonder about the years-gone-on potential of these pigeons, somewhere down the line, and I think about what these birds could be capable of - some part group and social abilities training, and some part, some facet of the Wild Animal Park's walk-in, hand-feeding aviary experience, somehow, navigated through the lens of that the pigeons are just wild birds. I've seen, and experienced, some features of this sort of descriptive pigeons and parrots experience, up north, in Sacramento, where, as a child, I had a formative experience in feeding birds (pigeons) that would land on people who fed them, and take food out of their hands. 

(Some of) a flock of pigeons that I take care of, in town. One arrives, swooping down from the birds' ledge, while others eat their meal, and while one examines me, observing them.

Obviously, I get used to some of the birds, and there's some of them that I would miss, if they disappeared. This is on my mind, because Snooker, the resident Pakistani High Flyer of the local Library's flock, seems to have gone in an extended leave, over the past week, or so' which is uncharacteristic, although, on one hand, new birds showed up at the flock's ledge, where they hang out, all day, and, being a whitish breed of pigeon, Snooker was fairly unique. There's a new white pigeon, amongst the new birds, and I know of a flock, nearby enough, where there's a backup Pakistani High Flyer, so it's not a complete loss, if Snooker is truly gone for good, somehow (there was a pigeon hunter who visited the flock with a hawk, recently, although I think I saw Snooker after that). I'm mostly concerned about the breeding stock, and of the birds' individual psychology, in the case of the unique, white, or whitish pigeons, such as Snooker, or, in other cases, where the decorative features of some of the pigeons, which have developed, over years, could be lost, if the birds happen to be picked on, or picked out, for hunting purposes, particularly, although I don't own the birds, per se, I know, and people are generally free to do as they please amongst, or about, the birds. 

Snooker tends to disappear, though, here and there, I'd estimate, and since he had sired some young, or mated with females, at least (I'd witnessed him mate, once or twice), there's a possibility that his genetics will appear, soon, or, over years ("recessively," as it's known, in genetic terminology), once again, if he had gone missing, permanently. There's a chance that he's caring for some young, with his mate, for example, perhaps, since I'd seen him recently pair up with a female 🐑.

Anyways, what I thought had been unique conditioning rhetoric that occured, recently (yesterday), was that the birds had started to get used to me showing up, and I'd been favoring sweet, rich treats, such as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with table syrup (now, I'm doing PB&J with marshmallow creme). Some of them start to anticipate being fed, and they'll swoop down, when I show up and sit on the ledge, and wait for their food (sometimes, they won't wait, though, and they creep up and steal a slice of bread, while I prepare their sandwiches. Inevitably, the slice falls down, on to he sidewalk, and some of the other birds, waiting below, begin to devour the bread slice, hungry creatures that they are). This time, though, the really cute thing that some of the birds did was that they followed me, after I was done feeding the flock, and I was headed over in to the library. There's a shady alcove, beneath the foliage, where some of the birds have started spending some time, to cool down, during the heat wave we'd been going through, in Southern California. So, several of the birds follow suit, and track me over to the new spot, which, I feel, is a good signal for optimism that these birds are trainable, despite being adult birds, most of them. There was a bird that had swollen ears, or an infection, of some sort, and he's doing better, lately, as well.