Ugh. I'm growing tired of personal issues getting in the way.

 Over the past several months, as I've been housed in an Interim Housing Program hotel shelter, for homeless people, I've started to finally make some ground over some chronic, nagging issues that have been getting in the way of my better day for myself. For example, last year, I punched a thick wood wall panel, at a baseball dugout, essentially, over some disturbance that was playing out in my mind, and getting the best of me. I punched the board hard enough to break bone, (since the board, itself, didn't break, from me hitting it), yet my bones didn't break, even though it would have otherwise incurred a boxer's fracture, from my sloppy technique, having hit the board out of frustration, confidently, as it were, since I have steel plates in my hand, surgically implanted, dating back to another boxer's fracture, back around 2005-2006, or so. It was pretty debilitating. I had a hard time shaking people's hand, as a business person (I had to shake people's hands all the time, and I'd preferred not to have to explain the injury). 

This being the backdrop to my current situation, in that I'm certain that I incurred the same degree of injury (equivalent to broken bones), yet, latently present, in my structural formation of my body, in the facets of the supportive bones and joints that correspond with the punch to the wooden panel. I know, it seems silly, but it's difficult to empathize, or relate to a schizophrenic, I figure. I've been there, before, as a schizophrenia-naive person, to a sufferer-partner figure, who had schizophrenia, before my own real onset of schizophrenia, for myself. 

The voices had gotten to me, in other words. I was out on the street, and voices in my head were giving me a hard time, and I ended up I juring myself. It's taken a long time for me to see some positive results in recovery, but I sometimes spend entire days, out of a week, laying in bed, wondering, somewhat, why I feel like I have no energy. Since I'm always trying to quit using substances to prop me up, in life, it's somewhat a blind spot, and I found myself, recently, both denying that the substances "do" anything, at all - they do "do" something;" it's just that I had quit, temporarily, and I fell in to denial. That was the first signal to note, the other one was that, since they still "do" work, I stopped feeling like quitting, as much. It's a performance-basis sort of dependency. 

This sort of confusion is the primary reason I don't favor, or support, the "drugging" of the flocks, in order to train and tame them. I want their basis to be secure and wholesome, in simply arising from being fed well, and for being interacted with, in a considerate and paced, patient manner. I don't want the birds to become confused, as to what our purpose is, together, and hopefully others won't come along and ruin the birds' progress, as they're doing well, lately.

So, I go through these ongoing bouts of loss of ego, and denial, amidst hearing voices, although it's not as capable in persecuting me, as it had been, when I was out on the streets. It hasn't been a year, yet, since I've been housed again, but I've made good progress: my room looks impressive, for example, for a homeless person, I'd say. I finally just got back on my own unlimited Internet connection, and I'll be operating as best that I might, within a couple of weeks, or so, with a new iPad Pro in my hands, within sight, over the next few days - I've laid the groundwork for it. I go on, about my work week, trying to keep up with feeding the birds, as my daily benchmark of success, and I still have these days where I lay in bed all day, perhaps once or twice a week. It feels very physically strenuous; it probably is, considerably, somewhat strenuous, and I gauge, in my smart watches, that I track anywhere from 4 ½ miles per day, up to 11-13 miles, sometimes - just going around, feeding the pigeons and other birds (sparrows, is all, this time of year), and I also have to expend walking energy going out to buy groceries. It's pretty simple fare, and mundane, but I've worked out a fair rhythm and flow to my days. Sometimes it's the noises around me - the "certain" noises, that I can pinpoint to an actual person, or generalized location, nearby me; that is, to say, that these are "actual" noisy events around me, not voices in my head - these noises are a common disturbance for me, because of the volume. 

Anyways, I try to make my day work out, and I try to keep things working for the pigeons' best interests; i.e. keeping them fed, regularly, so that they can be trained, or trainable. They've made good progress, lately, as the library pigeons now customarily eat out of my hand, on a daily basis, as well as that they'll accept a stranger's hand, in hand-feeding them. It's a good sign; it's taken 7 years of upkeep in feeding the birds to get them to this point, in serendipity - either the birds were just ingrained-frightened of having affections for humans, meaning that they had no supportive nurturing environment to have them learn to accept humans as their caretakers, fully, perhaps due to neglect, or abuse - this type of learned behavior is difficult to alter; I find that it's best just to perform upkeep, at this stage, yet, some of the library birds' newcomers were a younger generation, which had not seen as much abuse, as had been going on, in previous years, so, some of them accept hand-feeding, and these ones sometimes seem to prefer the human element, in some part of their feeding time, for their day.

The pigeons at the DTLA Central Library enjoy some spoon-fed cheesecake.

I figure that it's a good sign, for certain; that these birds are learning new and dynamic behaviors that replicate on to the "strangers" figures, as I'd brought a companion along, on two occasions, so far, in which the birds are out of my companion's hand. It makes me ponder the possibility of the birds finally making it, in to becoming a transformational force, in the city; a force of healing recreation for people to enjoy. That potential is what keeps me going, on the days where I feel like I can't get up, keeping up the feeding of the birds, for the birds' sake, so that they don't unlearn these behaviors. Each flock has its own potential, in training, imaginably, and other flocks, such as Pershing Square, and the Figueroa at 4th St. underpass flock both also now recognize me, and they fly up to greet me, upon arrival, customarily, fairly regularly. It's a sign that they're learning, on top of having positive experiences imprinted upon them, as individual pigeons, in a flock; thus, they influence the flock's behavior, over time, as a whole. It's a decent and wholesome psychological foray; these birds, I figure - something that inspires critical thinking and psychologically-correlative thinking, in a "well" setting that's publicly accessible. 

Over time, I learn more about the pigeons, and they take me in, as one of the familiar insiders, as though I'm "one of them." 

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. 
 

The new and updated Sticker Time October 2024 complete series (48 pieces).

 These are all images that have previously been shown and published, here on iPigeon.institute, and elsewhere; it's just that I set out to do as complete a collection as I felt would be appropriate, considering the recent art work in imagery I've done, as well as examples and images from my earlier years in image, photography, and illustration creation.

My latest, most complete Sticker Time set yet - I decided to do a small run of prints for nearly all of my Sticker Time images.

The Sticker Time Collection is a (currently) small novelty art, Generative Artificial Intelligence imagery, and photography series, which is in ongoing development, for the sake of popularizing and reawakening the connections we have, as humans, with birds; a colloquy which brings some of the cute things about birds, and our imagination and bond that people have, with regards to the human endeavor, in exploring the potential that we have: a life enriched, when we have an inclusion of bird friends amongst us, captured in the miniature form and artistic medium of 2-inch stickers, which, individually, portray some small aspect of birds, brought to light.

The project is still in it's early stages, as my artistic aspirations and hopes for this collection are expansive, with regards to differing mediums, with which to present the art, as well as that I'd like to explore more themes in creating numerous amounts more stickers. 

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)

Local DTLA Pigeon Genetic Milestones - Academic Evidence

 As it's been around 7 years that I'd been visiting the local Downtown Los Angeles pigeon flocks and keeping this blog, several breeding seasons had come to pass, with some distinctions in the subsequent offspring of the pigeons that had been living back then now prominently mixing in to the general showing of the birds (I estimate that the local flocks' birds will see an average lifespan of up to 10-15 years, since they're cared for, on a distributed and daily basis). 

What does this mean? 

It means that the pre-existing birds (adults and wild pigeons) are seen, side-by-side, demonstrating what the University of Utah's Pigeonetics website documents as genetic variations, due to some or other particular conditions; genetic development conditions, as it were.

"Snooker," as I've named him (I've discerned that he's male, over time, due to his behavioral traits and his mating-act positioning of himself as the dominant partner), pictured here (below), earlier on, in 2024, with what could be his offspring (above); a more young and less developed bird, as the birds are capable of improving on their inherited genetics with suitable nutritional and conditioning support, during their lifetime. Snooker is perhaps a year and a half old, or so - I noticed him at the library beginning last year, in 2023. I was surprised to see his genetic likeness in this other, young bird, which left the flock, after some weeks. The genetic variant of this style of pigeon is perhaps known as as "Pakistani High Flyer," with various marks of genetic distinction being apparent, given a common wild pigeon.

The University's website does a fine and entertaining quick read on genetic variants, as well as some of the conditions under which some of these variations occur, in the birds' pedigrees. Some of the conditions require multiple breeding seasons, as well as chance and distributed mating efforts - keep in mind, pigeons are bound to relatively simple behaviors, given that their outdoor wildlife hobbyist environments are coupled with some challenges and strife, from naysayers to their well-being. This being the case, 7 years is plenty of time for these birds to have mixed, and - one can observe, on any given day, the richness in variety that the birds' plumage and other ornamentation, such as their eyelids, leg feathers (my mother would call this feature their "pants"), as well as frills and beak shape and size differentiations. 

I call this one "Redbeard," for his unique decorative facial plumage. Redbeard is a fun and friendly bird; I spot him sometimes breaking the ice, so to speak, on a day-by-day basis, by flying "at" me, excitedly, ostensibly, because I bring them tasty sweets, mostly pastry type items, and cookies. It's a sign of the promise of youth, of the birds, in renewing their numbers, year in and year out, of that perhaps we will see them though as someday hand-tame birds, under some circumstances, at least. It's happened before, at least, quite nearly so, but there's been a lot of other things going on, around their daily habitat environments. This being the case, I do make it out to feed them pretty regularly, nearly every day, given a month, or so, so that's good conditioning towards these local Downtown Los Angeles birds becoming tamer, over time. Redbeard is very sociable-curious, as the flocks of pigeons around him, since his upbringing, have been relatively large; anywhere from 25-100 birds, I'd estimate, show up for the feedings around him. I estimate Redbeard's age to be 1-3 years old; I just started noticing him, in particular, this year.

Given time left to themselves, (in a theoretical setting), pigeons will revert to their wild state, in appearance. These genetic variations are considered domesticated and fancy traits. My take on these flocks is that they can be fancy, moreso than domesticated, for beginners, given that there are still threats abound, for the birds, being likely. Beyond that, civic support for the birds would ostensibly grow, organically, given that they are wildlife, and, as well, being that they're taken care of, as best as they can be (I clean up, after them, on a regular basis, and other people provide them with water dishes regularly, as well). 

A prominent monochrome-colored black-feathered pigeon, which is one of the markers of genetic variance that occurs, under controlled care circumstances, here, amongst many other pigeons, for reference. This flock is situated just outside of downtown LA, but they're more free to perch and peck around, in their daily habitat environment, without being harassed. As a result, their behavioral traits and mannerisms are more gentle, naive, and open to sociability.

Check out the University of Utah's site, as the information there will assist most readers in understanding the sort of information discussed here, in a more pragmatic and straightforward manner of explanation, as it was the source of my realization of the developments discussed here, and there are simple, page-by-page discussions that are navigable, with pictures and or charts included on each page. It's really a well-done explainer site, that serves the purpose of demystifying some of the complexities of pigeon pedigree development and establishment. 

The neat-o iPigeon.institute homemade instrument of the day (updating).

As an aspiring mobile device-driven music box designer, from various standpoints of development: nature’s form of the instrument (whistles, clicks, pops, bird sounds, and resonant bodies of materials, such as metal, wood, etc.), digital design of the emulated instrument (physical modeling, synthesized sounds, audio recordings, key mappings, and transpositions), as well as the delivery of the app, in a usable form, of some standard such as MIDI, 

I have, on one hand, a lot of free space to work with, given that any individual component would reasonably simulate some sort of more complex mechanical form and instrument structure, for example, my first novelty device:

The Can Drum Bellows Clicks-Flourisher - runs on tar!

Long-time readers of mine know that I’m big in to tar. What a fortunate discovery, to have happened upon this hand-crafted (post-manufacture and consumer use of this recyclable product - an aluminum can) bellows device - a sequential flourish-clicker, if you will, with features of a miniature steel drum; on one hand, percussive, as the form of the instrument was crafted by my own musician’s take on suitable design, for a makeshift tobacco pipe, whereas - as a pipe, for that matter, the instrument is played with the breath. It goes well, with a popping sound, perhaps, as a flourish moment, in a musical idea, whereas the tar, from smoking the aluminum can pipe, with tobacco; then smeared (the tar) across the numerous holes in the can’s smoking bowl section, whereby the can, suitably designed, mind you, would blow out, with a bellows thrust and force design concept, in mind, with both flutish and percussive effects being achieved, in one simple blow. 

It’s a simple thing to construct, yet it takes a musician’s skill and finesse, along with some entrained tonal fine-motor muscle tuning, which goes in to the crushing of the can - perhaps even a newcomer could construct the panels of the body of the instrument well enough; it’s just that this is particularly a musical instrument consideration. The holes are poked through, slightly, with a safety pin, or needle, perhaps, and the blowing happens through the drinking mouthpiece, otherwise, visually, the “top” of the can. 

Try it for yourself! It’s really a cute instrument to pull off, to wow your friends, compatriots, and passersby, alike. Try it with a squeeze pop!

Hear the individual sounds of the instrument, freshly capped with tar, from tobacco!

The DTLA (CA, USA) police administration dog park pigeon flock, having dinner.

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.

New Developments in the South Bay (updating)

Since

I haven’t been receiving unemployment deposits on to my CA EDD (California Employment Development Department) debit card, any time recently - perhaps since early spring, this year, or so; I was upright and cautious enough to get through the whirligig of what had been the heyday of Pandemic Unemployment Award benefits, in addition to standard unemployment benefits, as well as Federal Disaster Aid benefits (something like that), which had made mid-2020 through Q3 of 2021, or so, an illustrious gilded pigeon-egg golden (imagined 🤔) phase for fragrance and aroma ingredients procurement and some product development along those lines, for iPigeon.institute as well as IoTpigeons.eco. I had done some bungling preliminary work on branding the fragrance-interested arm of the enterprise, as iPigeon Aroma Company, but so far, it’s not had a foundational establishment to ground ideas, from out of it, or retail-ready product line, to present to testers. I’m a bit overextended, in other words, but I’m working out some of the latent consequences, such as uncanny neck pain (I’ve been developing what’s been described as an expert technique - perhaps quite niche, since I do “oxen” types of hauling labors, lately, and even more so than I might, otherwise, since I’m flat out on the streets, and looking for a new place to call home - a board and care facility, in this instance, rather than a transitional living home (whatever that means, 🙄 it ended poorly, I must say). At any rate, I’ll update the advanced next cracking video series, for the specialization in self-help | pressure point healing that it attends to, in blood circulatory wellness. It’s not quite massage, and it looks pretty jacked, but I’ve been finding it necessary to correct myself in public; strange that I might appear to be, for doing that sort of thing, but nonetheless, it’s not necessarily my fault - the dirt on the topic was that it felt like there was electrical lines running underneath the floor in my room, and I’m not quite all that much paranoid, like, a for real squirrels type of paranoia 🫣, plus, there was marijuana being grown in the garage just below me: my room was ostensibly adjacent to the corner of the ceiling of the garage. Strange developments from out of that sort of thing can be found on my Twitter feed.

Now, 

though, I’m out in the open air, and these charges that I’ve been cracking out, illegal that they’d been called, have been getting normalized, and attenuated, for being pressed out of my joints and connective tissue. I’ve also had the good fortune to be able to try out, for product reviews that I’m hired for, and I feel that they’ve largely been fairly okay, and sometimes better than just imagining that they might be working. It’s been a boon to my enterprise developments, post-Covid-19 gilded age era type of thing. 

So, I got out of town, this evening

and I’m over in the South Bay - a nice diversion from the business and chaotic identities that make DTLA such a hyper-vigilant real squirrels type of reality basis life - I’m out, feeding the pigeons, guys are wondering, this and that, sometimes they want to fight, or catch me sleeping, vulnerable, which sucks, because I really do “have to” sleep outside, and I can’t really accommodate people trying to rob me and ask me questions in my sleep. It’s just rude, and I have to see people when I look at them, and being a stalking victim really makes a superficial me, out of myself, which I’m okay with, for the most part, yet the not okay stuff is still just not okay, at the same time. On one hand, it couldn’t possibly be okay, but I’m also committed to paying my taxes down for running a pigeon-feeding bum enterprise-able lifestyle thing, pigeons that they may be - they do need to eat, and I have been getting a lot of oversight accommodations to the stuff (that I do). Feeding the pigeons, and stuff. 

So, I’m thinking, wow - that’s pretty awrr rawr rough and tough, on a pigeon-feeding bum, but for this past year, being that the Covid-19 pandemic emergency basis had been established, I figure - they got a good assessment on me, some professional person who took a good look at what I do, and what basis for tax code things pertain to me, and I guess I can’t really say that I haven’t been a pigeon-feeding bum, and I made all sorts of claims about things on Twitter, and I can’t afford to look like an idiot, for very long, and try to talk my way around things, over at the finance office front counter, or something. There’s got to be some way I’m worth this money, and the Los Angeles City Office of Finance had arranged to have businesses be allowed to make reasonable offer accommodations of some sort, to get the taxes paid, and get the city running, and stuff. I’m not a complainer, but there could obviously be some improvements done and made done - I figured, in my case, I could keep it kinda bum-basis “looking” kind of thing, and I offered to clean up the streets of south Los Angeles, which are notable for regular, ongoing, and mass site dumps of trash and garbage, all around town, to a large degree. It’s a shoddy notable characteristic of the place, and I run a “clean-up” blog, for that matter, that I hadn’t really updated, for most of all of the year that I’d been keeping it up, as far as last year. The blog got tons of hits, though, relatively. I figured I ought to nurture the clean up thing, on that end. It was really a Trump-era aspiration to fulfill, and I was big on supporting Donald Trump, as President, for the good that I saw and knew of him, from what I could discern, and infer, as far as who he is, or might be - even though it went against the grain, so to speak, as far as most of my Facebook friends were, as opinionated people, at the time. 

But now

I’m in the South Bay. Things are a bit more reserved and upscale here, as far as presentation and as far as “the rules” go. Out here, in at least a few of the South Bay cities, a person could (and I had) be stopped and taken in, for example, by the police, for smoking tobacco in public. I got a misdemeanor charge dropped, after attending and participating in supporting 12-steps activities and groups, amongst many uninterested (or otherwise interested - in “other” kinds of stuff - a lot of it stalking-basis kinds of things: fairly distasteful, in my opinion). I’d met the lovely young ladies who’d warned and cautioned me against doing this and that, sort of thing - even though it would seem enticing and like, that things could be like I imagined they were - like, first date night kinda stuff, but back then, to be honest, I was a much different-minded sort of person, and I thought that various more so thing that I’d like to do would wind up being rewarding, whereas I was just setting out on my early illustrious homeless years, speckled with incarcerations, involuntary hospitalizations, and more homelessness. Here and there, I got to (or tried to) grab a boob, and stuff, but even that kind of fluff got further and further away from being likely to have had happen, and, at some point, I just stopped trying. I worked up some self-sufficiency, and resilience, counting on this pigeon-feeding bum thing, and associated blogging efforts - along with the fragrance and cosmetics line developments to come: by all means, appreciable materialism that I’d been fortunate enough to have gained capital in, and hopefully, will continue forth, in maintaining a hold of - there’s been some nasty disputes about my “actual” ownership of my purchased property, and just tonight, in fact, they’re planning to riot in DTLA, and piss on the trees I’d been trying to nurture and fertilize, out there, rather than that they just don’t show up to downtown, at all, by night, to do that, but for some reason, they seem to feel emboldened by that sort of display and destruction - part of it, on at least one person’s mind, having that he’d taken particular issue with me, for personal reasons - reasons of dislike towards me, towards which, I’m like, “…” well, nah. I’m just, like, nah… about it. But he was doing something, not telling me about it, and apparently, my stuff is “gone.” Quite a hostile takeover, but I’m working out the legalities and jurisprudence consequences of the matter, for as much time as I can devote to it. It would be a significantly closely held loss to the enterprise and my productivity. 

Anyways, 

there’s some cool new developments out here, this area being neighbored to the Ballona Creek | Los Angeles River project, which begins at the beginning of Marina del Rey, at the south side edge of Venice Beach, winds through Playa del Rey, and here, in El Segundo, perhaps some groundbreaking work, where the Raytheon establishment had “seemed to” have formerly been (remember the rocket man news articles? (add citation - note), a new commercial hotspot development had popped up, over just short months that it’s been, since I’d been here - I love the Del Amo Fashion Plaza Nordstrom, here - it’s my favorite 😍, and there’s also a huge water main - perhaps some exciting work that’s new, and ground that’s been laid for some new sights to see, and development sites, as well, that pertain to the Los Angeles Watershed development program and progress, thereof - I’ll venture out more, towards the shore, from here, and update with more reports, as I come across new things that I notice, out here.

The El Segundo Golf Course, (I’m not sure of what it had been named, previously), is now a notable TOPGOLF establishment. It looks great! I ought to really try out this spot, since it’s been newly renovated, and make use of my Turnway padded foldable golfing bag, which I had been using for carrying around my gardening tools. It’s available on Amazon for $78.99. It’s got great wheels on it, and it can support at least 15-20 pounds, traveling on even the streets and concrete, for miles at a time, without fading out on the wheel support. 

I overnighted at the El Segundo Plaza. Not much all that new, there, but I did have a penchant for the place, given that there are power outlets available outdoors, with lighted trees, in the parking lot. The lights shut off on me, though, along with the electricity. Perhaps I ought to check on that, moving forward, at some point. Hopefully it wasn’t something that would be a significant fault of mine, but I’ll look in to it. Come morning time, I woke up, and the people in the locality wound up having various appreciable offerings and leave-outs for me, which I detailed on Twitter:

Downtown Los Angeles’ new pigeon babies - season by season (Updating: 2022 - *)

In most cases,

A typical pigeon that a person would come across is simply a standard pigeon. Over he years, however, with some dedication, investment, and care, the creatures become slightly diversified, of their physical appearance, in various ways. Here, in this article, I’ll document some of the images of the young, whom I can identify, of the season’s offerings of pigeon and sparrow babies, of some notable distinction in their appearance, compared to the standard varieties of wild pigeons or sparrows that are to be found, as adults - whom may, themselves, be newly homed or released birds, whereas I also attempt to manage the general day-to-day presence and feeding of the birds, within the Downtown Los Angeles area. I’m beginning this documentation at the end of May, 2022, a well-enough point in the season for babies to have hatched, been fed in the nest, by their parents, and now, they’re capable of getting out and about, and they’re capable of feeding themselves. They would also have taken on enough plumage to demonstrate their fully-adult appearances. 

2022 - Doe eyes and soft pastels, and a squirrel pigeon.

During this season, at the end of May, when I began documenting these birds, for the season’s developments, in the birds’ appearance, I noticed that some of the young, whom I could identify as fledgling pigeons or sparrows, had taken on some development around the eyes, as more pronounced, or outlined - in some cases, nearly decorative and cosmetic changes had seemed to have become established. On one hand, my task management capability here in town is somewhat a quite broad and challenging effort to fulfill - I’ve gotten up my daily small-localities visitations up to a definite 5 areas, whereas there are easily perhaps anywhere from 75-200 or so birds that show up to eat. Some breeders and pigeon specialists are capable of establishing very regimented and impressive defined features in their birds, such as alternating feather color on the wings, for example, but I’m not particularly going for that type of establishment, in these birds - mostly just focusing on keeping them fed. One of the challenges is that the birds seem to be getting poached, or targeted, for capture and abuse - I currently had recently taken in “Virgil,” so-called, a pigeon whom I found, out on the street, about a week ago. I found him with string, hair, and a metal spring tied around both of his feet, and fortunately, I was able to win his trust, take him home, and assist him, as best I could, in removing the objects that were binding his feet, although his skin was already very inflamed around the trauma areas, and the string bound the skin deeply, more than I cared to injure the pigeon with, in attempting to remove the string any further. 

June 2022: Cheetah zazzles and more doe-eyed pigeons.

Three doe-eyed pigeons; one, perhaps, a parent.

The life of baby striped-wing pigeon: photo blog.

 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. 

Curious baby pigeon stands out, amongst the crowd.

Update: 

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.