3 ms·
One day I found, in the parking lot of HEB supermarket, a beautiful, lightweight circular pattern approximately a foot across that appeared to be fabricated. Cl
by giardini 4y ago
One day I found, in the parking lot of HEB supermarket, a beautiful, lightweight circular pattern approximately a foot across that appeared to be fabricated. Closer inspection revealed it was a pigeon that had been run over repeatedly over many days.
Day and night the sun and cold air dry the pigeon mat. The smashed meat and connective tissue act as a protein glue to hold the mat together. Each vehicle presses, mixes, and spreads the mat into, on average, a very light colorful circular feather pattern (feathers tend to retain their structure more than bone, possibly b/c of their flexibility) that, once thin enough, wafts to and fro in the parking lot winds before settling gently to the ground.
I first thought to spray them with a waterproof coating and sell them as "Pigeon Frisbees" but alas, they were aerodynamically unsuitable (they rode the air like cattail seeds), and so, in the end I asked HEB parking lot employees to consider cleaning the remains of dead pigeons as a favor to their customers. The parking lots are more pleasant these days.
Plenty of pigeons are killed by cars, esp. females resting in empty parking spots, where they sometimes sleep.