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Each year on January 1st, I walk over to the bookstore and pick out a daily planner at 50% off. It’s become an unintentional tradition for me. Above is shown this year’s planner, which I will use mainly at work, and other acquisitions. Yes, you betcha I bought those dove cards at half price!
On a slightly related note, I don’t make new years’ resolutions. Whenever I resolve to do something, I just do it. You should, too!
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Here are some pictures to supplement a previous post where I talk about feeding doves in my great uncle’s balcony. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten to take my camera’s data transfer cable with me on vacation, so I took these pictures with my phone instead.
Pigeon gulps down seeds as its less courageous friends watch enviously.
A mourning dove sheepishly partakes of a seed under the watchful eye of the alpha pigeon.
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When I go to different cities, one thing that captures my attention is the difference in variety of local urban birds. For instance, the starlings in Arizona were huge compared to the ones I’m used to seeing in Southern California. The mourning doves in Istanbul are more of a reddish color than the ones here, and coo differently. I can’t help but feel like Charles Darwin, observing the difference in beak shapes of the finches in the Galapagos Islands, each type formed through years of evolution in isolation on an island. Usually, it’s the rock pigeons (the run-of-your-mill gray pigeons we see in almost every city) that seem to look the same everywhere.
Hong Kong had a disturbing lack of regular pigeons in the city, but I did notice many doves. They looked like standard mourning doves I’m used to seeing…
…except, these ones had silvery looking heads and dark necks laced with white spots! Yes, I was looking at a spotted dove, or Streptopelia chinensis.
Like all doves I’ve seen, they’re so impatient to walk around in circles frantically, making it difficult for me to photograph them well.
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I was in Hong Kong last week. More on that later. Unexpectedly, one of the highlights of my trip was visiting the aviary in Kowloon Park. I finally saw a Victoria Crowned Pigeon in person.
I’d wanted to see a Victoria crowned pigeon ever since I saw a picture of one in an encyclopedia back when I was nine or ten years old. I was doing “research” for a two-page comic about a mourning dove teaching a classroom full of young mourning doves about pigeon and dove ancestry and the many kinds of doves that exist today. You can see that my unusual fascination with doves began at an early age. The comic is more pedagogical than entertaining, but what can I say…. I was a nerd.
Sadly, I couldn’t get a good picture of the creature in the aviary. The photo above is taken from Extraordinary Pigeons by Stephen Green-Armytage.
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I commissioned Laura, one of my friends from MIT, to paint me some pigeons so that I can expand my ever-growing pigeon collection. Yay! Here’s what it looked like before she send it out, and here is what it looks like now:
Speaking of which, here is another recent addition to my collection:
Don’t ask me how my fascination with pigeons started, because it’s been too long for me to remember.
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Dear readers, I have finally sorted out my internet, hosting, domain name, creative muse, etc. issues and am back. I’m in the process of migrating everything from my old site (formerly known as “Queenoflub”) to this domain. I know I’ve posted a few similar things before, but this time it is for real!
So, I finally have a place where I can put up my drawings again! Below is all the “art” I’ve done so far this year:
Oh, and I’m planning on writing here more often than thrice a year. It is time to pick up where I left off and get back into the groove of things!
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Yesterday I took an approximately 4-hour walk. I walked all over town, down to Venice Beach. I love walking around and observing things without much human contact.
I went down the pier and met a Turkish street artist. I told him that I’d bring my parents over next time, and maybe he could draw all of us.
I was sitting in a park resting, when a flock of pigeons randomly landed next to me. I saw one pigeon that had white eyes instead of red, so I took its picture. As you can see, the picture came out okay. I also took a picture of the male pigeon that was chasing her; his picture is below.
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I dreamt that a pigeon accidentally poked its eye out when it turned on the shower and the showerhead was on the massage setting. It was sooo sad I was about to cry.
I also dreamt that Broodstar was dead. I dreamt a lot of things, but not all of them were bad. For example, I was swimming in the ocean. And at one point I was flying over the ocean and saw a shark and an alligator. I also dreamt that two families were having a duel.. and Cassie tried to climb onto the roof to watch it better. One girl died.. Sally was carrying her already cremated remains in a guitar case.
Yeah but that’s not all. Who cares.
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Okay, here are the amazing pigeon pictures:
Only that one pigeon was daring enough to come to our hands. This photo has captured three pigeons who are in the process of walking, and I think the way they look while their feet are in mid-air is hilarious.
A masterfully captured shot by yours truly; notice the piece of bread flying in the air. Those damn pigeons are too funny. That one pigeon on the right looks like he’s falling backwards!!
Reminds me of a cocktail party. So yeah, average pigeons going on with their daily lives.
AREn”T PIGEONS AMAIZNG!!!
edit: My uncle just called me a bird paparazzi… hehehe!
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I’ve apparently caught some hilarious pigeon action on film. Actually it’s not that funny, but I did discover today, when my mom got the pictures back, that pigeons look funny when they’re caught mid-walking. The foot looks so funny when it’s in the air. Another picture was taken just as a pigeon was tossing a big piece of bread into the air. I laughed so hard I cried. Pigeons are the best.
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