Looking at Peoria, Arizona in March 2021


I joined a Birding group on Facebook yesterday, and today while I was out riding around I decided to see what I could see in my little suburban neighborhood of Peoria, which is just northwest of Phoenix. What I saw mostly, of course, were pigeons, and while I did take some photos of them, I won't be posting them to the group, as many people might see it as either sarcastic, or maybe just pathetic. But the longer I looked at this photo, the more fascinating it became to me. I'll see if I can explain if you will give me some time.

It's just human nature to not even notice the common things around us that we go past every day. And I guess it wouldn't even matter how spectacular they were, if they were common, we would ignore them, or if anything, just consider them a nuisance, like pigeons, or parking lots, or traffic. But this morning as I sipped my coffee from McDonalds I watched the pigeons. I suppose that if I did too much of that, some nice people with butterfly nets would come and take me away, so I do a little bit, and move on.

This is something that I've been doing since I was a little kid - just looking at stuff. I used to draw, and paint, but nowadays I just look at stuff, maybe taking a few seconds to snap a photo with my phone. There's so much to see that I hardly know where to begin, but I want to start with the pigeons.


I really don't know anything about these birds, just that they're very attracted to any type of food they can find, and if you have a house they can be real pests. When I first got a dog I made the mistake of leaving some dog food outside and in no time I had a noisy flock of pigeons in my backyard. Not good! This group this morning (hang on, I'll Google what a group of pigeons is called) or Band, Dropping, Flight, Flock, Kit, Loft, Passel, Plague, or School of pigeons were obviously waiting for me to throw them a french fry. But all I get at McDonalds is coffee. The one on the right seems to be very indignent! Well!


Let's see, what else is in the photo worth noting? How about those palm trees? I have a special fascination for palm trees, and those are date palms. Well, presumably they don't fruit, so they would be dateless date palms. The Phoenix area has a lot of palm trees, both feather-shaped, like the ones on the left, or fan-shaped like the ones you see in the background.

I should be able to identify the cars! Not sure what the one on the far left is, but I'm pretty sure the one behind it has a Jeep logo on the back. I don't know what make and model the dark red pickup truck is there behind the shorter date palm, and I'm not even absolutely sure about the rest of the cars. I think the pantyhose-colored one is a Chevy? So much for my ability to identify cars! If you recognize them, let me know.

Anyway, that's a McDonalds, which is a fast-food place that specializes in hamburgers and french fries (big favorites of the pigeons!) and the flags are of the USA and of Arizona. By the way, along the side of the building it says, "Play Place" but since it's March of 2021, there are no kids playing in there. In fact, the dining area is closed, although I can walk in and get my coffee. Most people use the drive-through, anyway.


It's an overcast day, which is rare here in the desert, so the shadows are soft and the colors are muted. If I were to do a painting of this scene I would probably use watercolor, or tempra. If I had the time, and the talent, I would do a drybrush, like Andrew Wyeth often did. But I think I'll just sit there, and look.
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