The Harbor Transitway (110 freeway) at 37th Street Metro Station pigeons are a charming feature.

Typically, along my recyclables-collection route that I do for some small dollars and change, on most days (that I’m able to; recyclable glass gets heavy), I end my evening from out of downtown Los Angeles, (CA), over through the University of Southern California, where there is plenty of student-pedestrian traffic offering recyclables to the collector. 

Typically, I would make perhaps $5-$10, with $15 being a rare thing. Any more than that would be a most rare day of collection. 

The 37th St. at USC Station [somewhat] marks the bordering end-point corner of the USC campus, although Exposition Park also largely is used for student events. 

The station’s freeway underpass features a long-survived and charming flock of perhaps 2 dozen pigeons.

Here, you can see the pigeons roosting on a ledge. Just another day for these pigeons, although I usually arrive here at night, when they’re seldom out, as a group. 

People who had long-followed my blogging and social media would perhaps recall the night I found a box of pizza here, along with the pigeons fortunately being out and about; as I could not possibly eat the whole pizza myself, by this time of the evening, and at that, I found it a fortuitous and serendipitous moment for a photography composition called “Late night pizza pigeons.” Here’s the photo.

These pigeons got a big and tasty meal that night. Other people tend to this flock regularly, as well; as there is a water bowl for the pigeons at the corner of the station. The pigeons had learned to drink and bathe in the bowl of water. This flock is a well-taken care-of flock, and they breed regularly. The birds are somewhat accustomed to human interaction and attempts to feed them, at this point in time.

An iPigeon.institute artisanry aspiration - another homemade cheese.

As some of my longer-term readers would know, I had started an effort in making cheese around Christmas this past year, using eggnog.

https://www.ipigeon.institute › prepa...

Preparing the pigeons' feed for the day ... - iPigeon.institute blog

May 7, 2019 · Learn a recipe for an all-seasons pigeon health supplement: pidgin cheese.

This time around, I'm attempting a more savory-layered cheese culture, with liquid malted milk, tapioca, for a starch, heavy whipping cream, and rennet. 

Here's the cheese as I originally had prepared it, in various layers. I had decided that I would let the layers stay still, instead of homogenizing the mixture, in order to investigate the effect of the rennet culture upon the various components of the cheese. 

Within a day, the layers had separated, and curds had formed in the layer of cream, at the top of the mixture.

Day 2 of the cheese-in-the-making. I took a taste of the top of the cheese, off of the lid, and it reminds me of a cream fraiche sort of mild and rich cultured cream, nearly a sour cream. Not very sweet at all. 

I let the cheese out on evenings so that it has alternating cold and cool environments for it to culture and form, without risking that it spoils, like I imagine it could, as a partly dairy cheese, and only a half-tablet of rennet, to begin with. 

Tomorrow, I'm going to separate the layers, or, perhaps, dig in to the bottom layers and take a taste of them, to see if they might be essential aspects of the final product; the malted milk liquid layer and tapioca, as starch, as experimental culinary adventurousness. I'll keep this blog post updated with the results.

Day 3:

I took a smell of the cheese, as I had left it out overnight, once again, and the layers had definitively separated well, and I knew that some of the product was waste from the microbial rennet culture. 

My new cheese bowl, after dumping the top layer and liquid middle layer out, over cheesecloth and mixing it all together. It had a sour smell, but when I mixed it with some honey bunch grain cereal, it made for a delightfully sweet and slightly tart morning dish. 

Compared to cottage cheese, which I had never tried before, because I had thought that it must taste gross (it doesn't, it just looks curdy):

Perhaps somewhat similar in taste, although my cheese was much more basic in ingredients. 

That was all! Just three days to a homemade cheese.

I’ve discovered another pigeons’ roost.

Here, at the 4th St. underpass at Figueroa in Downtown Los Angeles. This one fills in some of the blanks as to where and when flocks could be found; importantly, if I or no one else has gotten around to feeding them for more than a day or two, or more.

Once again, I discovered a low-lying ground scout, out and about, pecking around, as a simulation of eating. I had just found some extra food about a half-hour ago, so I was well-prepared to feed the dozens of birds here, nearby the lawn outside of the American University Preparatory School.

Someone was particularly appropriate today in an in-trashcan finding (for the pigeons).

I found this great bag of next-day's doings for the pigeons - 

A bag of white bread, some smoky sausage and hot dogs, and a recyclable bottle of Sprite. Thanks!

I was happy to see this left out for someone. Thanks again!

A cool new tech project - the self-lighting lightbulb apparatus.

I came across this video on YouTube, after eyeing over some Fox Video news clips. 

It shows how someone can come up with a self-lighting lightbulb apparatus using simple technology - some wires, a loose speaker, a spark plug, and a lightbulb.

Thanks, Share Tech, for sharing this with us!

A common day’s routine of morning pigeon feeding in DTLA. (A photoblog).

Pigeons, in an urban locale, have many various micro-localities and behaviorisms, to be seen, of expositional formations of a flock in garnering a meal, hopefully, from the public.

This sole avian creature, I might imagine as the “scout.” This is the first seeker, or perhaps he was left out of sufficient food enough, from the previous day. Other birds loom and perch nearby as they keep an obvious eye on this one.

After observing the fortunes of this one, having been tossed some breadcrumbs, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, broken up into pieces, (pigeons, at this stage in cross-species socialization with humans, [late August, 2019] are tentative about eating from ‘particularly’ human food resources.

A tentative pigeon?

Upper left.

The tentative pigeon, as one of the ostensible pigeons that might be encountered in attempts to feed or tame the birds, as feral pigeons. 

A tentative pigeon.

Perhaps the flock had been roused or rough-housed by some passersby, prior to this (most ostensibly, this type of thing does happen in Los Angeles). The tentative pigeon sometimes serves as the scout for the rest of the flock.

I hadn't fed the popular (and large) Broadway, between 5th and 6th, in a week or more, partly because of cost concerns, and also because I was keen on making gains in taming the smaller flock of pigeons and sparrows by the Grand Park Children's Playground; also to be found at the LAPD Central Division Park on some afternoons, this time, on account of there being music, dance, and performance events for the summer, at the park.

The LAPD DTLA Central Headquarters, next to City Hall and Grand Park, and Little Tokyo and the Arts District, (on the other side), features a popular dog park; potentially pigeons and sparrows like it also, after events at Grand Park, where I had become accustomed to feeding them in recent weeks.

Here's the LAPD lawn and popular dog park, where I spotted the pigeons and sparrows of Grand Park, after they fled, due to a series of evening and daytime events for DTLA revelers and partiers.

There's a pretty white-feathered pigeon; a mottled pigeon, and plenty of feral pigeons and sparrows that follow them around, as a dual-species flock in the area and neighboring locales. 

Back to the Broadway on South 500-600 (mostly there, anyhow).

I noticed that there was a great deal of bird physical size variance here; most obviously due to age, as it was perhaps breeding season recently, and this large flock would inevitably feature the new young birds in town. It's grown to what might appear to be nearly a hundred birds, or so. A daunting task for keeping them all fed. Thankfully, the nuns at the Sisters Disciples of the Divine Master and some of the shop owners where the pigeons flock and roost toss the birds seeds. At this point in time, it seems like the birds don't prefer or differentiate between one sort of food, or another. The other feeders must be keeping them well fed, at a sustainable pace.

The pigeons here on 500-600 S. Broadway eat their meal, then, with a powerful flutter, fly away in formation, a theatrical move to complement their considerate societal behavior.

One tentative pigeon remains, perhaps he just hasn't learned, as the rest of the flock has.

I’m starting to show some age in my face.

I have a curious asymmetry about my face - I have one Asiatic eyelid, from my Chinese (Cantonese) mother, and one Eastern European eyelid, from my father’s Lithuanian roots. It makes for that I sometimes squint in one eye only. My old dog, named Biscuit, (passed away 😔) would sometimes wink at me. He was mostly always a good dog, good in friendly spirits, especially with women.