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. 
 

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. 

Recent PubMed National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Articles Detailing the Roles that Real and Robotic Pigeons Live Out, in Burgeoning our Augmented Reality Future.

Although, 

in one of iPigeon.institute’s initial and formative published purpose and mission statements, I’d estimated that the “real” iPigeon consumer product release would be decades away - from that time, just over 4 years ago, to the date (June 14th, 2018, it was, when I’d posted that article, and it’s July 2nd, 2022, today, when this article was initially published), I’d been a comparatively young and pretentious public relations fawn, of a blog publisher, with great and vast ideas, of the mind, whereas I’d hoped, somewhat, that I was on the cutting edge of the robotic pigeon / augmented reality consumer product topic and public spectacle that would arise, as a result of this phenomenon and development, in society - it turns out, however, that academic and medical literature predates my claim-staking efforts. I’m always playing catch-up, in my relentless pursuit of knowledge, within the industry of biotechnology, apparently 👀🫣.

Here are some article leads pertaining to predating and since-then research and discovery developments upon the topic and subject matter of augmented reality “real” pigeons, robotic pigeons, and “real” pigeons, as some of the fore-bearing burdening birds (or beasts, as it were) of our developing technologies of correlated subject matter, such as Brain-Computer-Interfaces and remote-controlled brain interfaces, as well as some of the historical, previously classified, documentation, of our nation’s literary and intelligence heritage, which also predates even these late-breaking developments in pigeon-assisted technology. 

Historical background:

The pigeon, as a species, has maintained an illustrious career in the annals of the U.S. and British armed forces and intelligence agencies, dating back (upon a quick-search basis) to at least World War 1. 

A manual detailing the implementation and service basis of the pigeon amongst British armed forces, dating back to World War I. (Courtesy of the British Library).

In the United States, recently declassified documents detail the pigeons’ role in developing camera and image-based surveillance and recognizance intelligence, from a more advantageous position than could have been gained through other established technology, such as airplanes. 

Such documentation lends credence to the fact of that the pigeon has long been one of our stalwart lab and combat environment animals which have helped burgeon technology developments and national security efforts. Soon, I’ll update this article with some links to journal articles that cite pigeons as research subjects and as physics and physiognomical models for establishing remote sensing recognizance intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, and wirelessly controlled augmented intelligence experiences, thus paving the way for humanity’s progress.

The DTLA Civic Center | Grand Park | City Hall Black Lives Matter Occupy Activism Event - Some Notes from Up-Close.

The Black Lives Matter Occupy movement is a slight of concurrent popular culture for many young people in the Greater Los Angeles area, who flock to the locale surrounding Downtown Los Angeles' City Hall, where some folks have taken up establishment of an "Occupy" basis, which is supported by various volunteers, and perhaps, through some local tax dollars, as far as keeping them fed.

One thing is for sure: these people are not here, per se, for the sake of seeking housing, such that many people might presume of a homeless demographic. Rather, these folks are here for an historical sit-in, where the popular movement that has become Black Lives Matter, amidst a tepid backdrop of that COVID-19 reports had not quite faded from the common imagination, or news feed, for that matter.

What's become of the Black Lives Matter sit-in Occupy movement out here, on the lawn, is an aggregation of various common popularly received and news-media outlet covered topics, ranging from the recent Supreme Court's decision on LGBTQ individuals receiving equal rights within the context of the workplace establishment, George Floyd's controversial death at the hands of a police officer, and of Breonna Taylor's untimely death. 

The campers, themselves, are quarantined off, loosely, in their perimeter within the Grand Park Event Lawn, by short metal fencing, where artistic renditions of what matters to protesters are hung, for decoration, and for the sake of offering a voice to the otherwise mostly silent tent camp-in community that's established itself out here, on the lawn. Other than that, the park's daily activities that had been in play, prior to this Occupy movement taking reign over some aspects of the park, go on, regardless of the activism installation that is the Black Lives Matter ongoing protests.

Then, inevitably, at some point in the late afternoon, the activism movement's assembling street marchers take to the roads outlining Grand Park, nearby City Hall. They march and chant, under the directorship of a man with a bullhorn, who leads the group in a collective ideation and evocation of what the purpose and credo of this activist assembly confers, unto the public, within earshot of the movement's manpower and social and civic impetus underlying the group's ideology.

Over in other parts of town, broken windows and shuttered businesses confer a tale of a more sordid assembly establishment, of that which is the trepidation and untimely failures, for some business and retail establishments, for the sake of being incapable of sustainability and basis foundry of keeping faith in the longer-term outlook for business, which has affected establishments across the spectrum of business economy. 

Now, nearly two years later (mid-April, 2022), 

There are some faint echoes of the as-of-yet still somewhat contentious racial unrest, in the society that comprises the Los Angeles, California, USA landscape. Here and now, at the lawn in front of City Hall, at Grand Park, the park is renewing itself, of its former days of people walking their dogs, there’s birds to be fed, and the park is generally open and being used by the public. I didn’t get a chance to connect with anyone who was part of the park’s occupation movement, mostly on account of that there were barriers to communication, such as “actual” physical barriers, as well as that I’d observed some hostility and in-fighting amongst the occupants of the park, during that time. Race relations are still, in some demographics, quite arcane and rigidly defined, or disregarded, in how racism displays itself, still; rearing it’s ugly head in unexpected ways, that it would. As for myself, I am tasked with the premise of that I’m the pigeon-feeding bum, out here, as my most standard self, of coming out to downtown Los Angeles, from my home, in South Los Angeles, yet I still do - here and there, experience a bout of literal homelessness, even though I am housed. I say: it’s on account of discrimination, yet it’s a seething issue of some other obscure nature (somewhat); I call it a lack of sobriety, or maturity, or cultural exposure and tolerance, perhaps. 

On one hand, out here, I generally tend towards that I “don’t” typically experience acts of discrimination, although my housing situation exploits the concepts of that racism still looms large, in various ways in which I can just “simply infer” that people see me as a simple and slight person, made up of my appearance and cultural heritage, which at times, becomes a trifling subject for the “locals” out in South Los Angeles - which is a place of a different sort, from the bustling big city, small town, that comprises downtown Los Angeles, in that - here and there, at times, archaic attitudes persist, which become visible in prejudiced and discriminatory behaviors that I’ve come to have observed. Today, here in 2022 (this article was originally authored on June 25th, 2020), we’ve been on a long journey - through unrest that had began it’s boil, following the civic unrest of many large cities across America, and later, through the more long-standing effects of the civil decrees that were laid out as part of the plan to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. 

My take on what’s left of the dilemma of failing race relations? Don’t make it about race, per se. Make it a topic for open conversation, if need be, but be equitable and just, in speaking of, or on - the matter of race. Many people, in this enlightened age of access to information and culture, burgeoned by the knowledge base that is the internet - slighter and higher levels of intelligence can be pursued, and attained, while greater opportunities are afforded, even still, after the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Award money had been distributed, as well as the economic stimulus payments - all of those things were a boon, to us, as Americans. We are all Americans, in that sense - I believe that we ought to seek a common identity, rather than define ourselves by what conceived of us, perhaps little more than that, as it would come to be seen, I would surmise, in the current day and age, and in to the future, for the fact that we are creatures, now - capable of intelligent design, rather than natural selection, or selective breeding, per se. Let the distinctions and nuances of knowing each other, and one another, be the measure by which we relate unto ourselves, and thereby forge our identities, while keeping true to our American heritage, for all it stands for, rather than seek to discover what makes us different, and thereby perpetuate the disparities between us, as individuals, and as representatives of our culture.

A stub abstract; moving, no, taking a step back, Early modern period Europe, so everything and they can fart right now too? Step back for the scrape up other Europeans of not to be even thought of as fart-plausible: the Scotsmen and Celtics. They raise a pigeon whistling notion as far as I make of it, as needs Wikipedia et al resource scraping, and aficionados to dedicate a tête-à-tête carnival juggling whistles etc.

Scottish / Celtic Culture

Abstracts

Every 5 years, we make one Scottish girl, and we support her for all lifetime’s constraints, all things considerably. How much of that we support beyond 5 years is up to what the world will have of her.

Cardinal ordinances of Celtic Scottish bagpipe music, and of the courses of music contained therein.