I READ THE news on my Hewlitt Packard computer every morning, and it sits on my desk just below a large window that provides a beautiful view of my Mexican world.
The mountains are out there, of course, but so are massive flocks of birds, especially just after dawn. Many fly in large formations. Bigger birds, I’ve noticed, are more inclined to fly in formation than are smaller birds.
When did you last see a large formation of house sparrows? Likely never. House sparrows are independent cusses. Or a formation of hummingbirds. They stay too pissed off at one another to fly in formation.
It would just be a brawl.
But size is not the only factor. Some big birds do not fly in formation. Eagles and hawks shun formations. They are loners like me. You’ll not spot a Felipe formation in your lifetime.
Spring is near. It’s still quite cool here, but April and May will change that, the afternoons and early evenings at least. They get quite stuffy, worst time of the year.
It’s great seeing bird formations through this big window, and spectacular sunrises too. No matter the season.
Well Felipe, it also seems that your migration days up North are also done, as you have quite happily settled on your local pond, Olde Duck!
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Dan: Haven’t been above the Rio Bravo in seven years now, and I do not miss it. Yes, I am quite content here. As I mentioned in a previous post, my U.S. passport expires soon, and I was going to renew it in San Miguel during our visit next week. However, I later discovered the consular office will be shut for Semana Santa during our brief time there, so the passport will not be renewed anytime soon. It expires in May. The office told me that I have five years to renew it before it must be done from scratch, so … I have five years. I may never renew it. My Mexican passport gets me everywhere I might want to go apart from the crumbling United States.
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Have you noticed that sparrows and pigeons live only around people? And when people leave an area, so do those birds.
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Señor Gill: Had not thought about that, but you are right. They don’t call them house sparrows for nothing, I guess. And pigeons are not stupid. They go where the garbage is or where the dunces feed them. We have a growing pigeon problem around our main plaza downtown where tourists and even those who live here toss seed to them every day. It’s getting worse and worse. Anyone who’s been in the plazas of downtown Guadalajara can see the grim result of being nice to pigeons.
My wife and I dropped off a letter recently at the mayor’s office suggesting that he simply have signs nailed up in the plaza telling people not to feed the pigeons. He seems to have ignored us.
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I notice years ago that the goundskeepers at the university fed them corn mixed with dry plaster of Paris. It sets up in their craw and they die.
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Señor Gill: I prefer shotgunning, but that tends to attract the law.
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You definitely don’t want to attract the attention of the animal lovers. They can turn into real lunatics sometimes.
The groundskeepers were an angry, desperate lot, intent upon solving a problem.
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Yes, it is truly amazing how the information flies right into the computer, isn’t it?
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Ms. Shoes: It is like magic.
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