Remember those shiny white birds from the neighborhood of 320th ave and I-5 in Federal Way WA, that have vexed me for at least a few years now? I think I might have solved the mystery…
Fancy pigeons. Now I wouldn’t think somebody who keeps fancy pigeons would let them fly around, but what would I know? This isn’t 100% because I haven’t seen the full flock in motion close enough to be sure it was the same birds, but in the same neighborhood I saw two different pigeons that were blazing white. might have had a little darkness in the face and been a bit larger than average feral, but hard to be sure at a distance.
Why did I think they had size overlap enough with gulls to throw me? Bloom, I think. White objects look larger at distance, and these guys were even whiter overall than glaucous-winged gulls. Anyway, it’s been months since I’ve seen the whole flock together, which makes sense. A white pigeon in that neighborhood has to be total hawkbait.
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I know that people used to keep pigeons as a hobby, maybe it’s someone keeping a flock? Or maybe they’re feral.
Yes, domestic pigeon flocks can be given daily flights. Think of homing pigeons coming home after being released miles away, which is just exaggeration of a natural tendency. Domestic (as opposed to feral) pigeons also typically have white on their wings, making it easy to recognize a domestic flock in flight. Wouldn’t surprise me if some breeders took it to entirely white.
there’s not really any mystery that i did see domestic as opposed to feral pigeons in that neighborhood. i saw one close enough for positive id, one at a distance sitting next to a feral on a streetlamp. you wanna see a dove as white as the one in jehovah fanfic, go to 320th in fed way just east of I-5 and pitch a chair by the side of the road with the hobos. you’ll see ’em eventually if the hawks don’t eat em all first.
the only % doubt i have is to whether those fancy pigeons were in fact the flocking high-speed white birds i saw on those other occasions. i’m pretty sure now that they were.
I had a very short evening-nap dream wherein I was playing a FPS game based on the movie musical “Oliver!”
It was strange.
the dream and the game
.
and the movie
excellent… i hope the soundtrack was midi like doom
no
the soundtrack was from the movie, cheery songs about:
starving, brutalised children want more food
exploiting children
abuse victim defending abuser
.
so many of the classic hollywood musicals are just disturbing
just as long as he wasn’t defending his abuser with a plasma cannon
The song is called “As long as he needs me”
Nancy sings it just a few scenes before Bill beats her to not alive.
You should read the original story and then watch the movie.
compare and contrast
i’ll save the education in the darkness of the human soul for a day when i got more sauce. man, i talked to this lady whose family was getting some half-assed disability benefit that was by no means a good replacement for a working income, and she was emotional about the financial relief it could provide, called it a blessing. i talked to the disabled youth as well briefly, poor kid. my heart is fried like chicken hearts. u see a skillet of chicken hearts and wonder why one of them is a lot bigger, that’s me.
Not a birb expert, but I hear domestic pigeons do escape sometimes. Either they lose their way (sometimes during homing competitions) or they simply decide to leave and strike out on their own.
Once I saw a clearly “luxury pigeon” in the middle of a flock of city ones, and it was like a supermodel in the middle of an aunty convention: far taller, slenderer and with a completely different posture and gait.
And a few weeks ago I was mesmerized by a pair of pigeons in a train station: both of them dark charcoal gray/black, with blinding white wingtips, dorsal and head patch. Fabulous looking creatures, going about their day in a most normal pigeonly way…
i wonder if, in addition to being bred for looks, these guys were bred for flying skills. that formation was so tight and fast. pretty cool. iirc there are pigeon breeds that do loop-de-loops in flight.