{"id":4658,"date":"2012-03-07T05:57:32","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T12:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=4658"},"modified":"2012-03-07T18:14:02","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T01:14:02","slug":"the-little-things-that-change-our-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/07\/the-little-things-that-change-our-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"The Little Things That Change Our Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently received an email from one of my blog readers (thank you so much Ingrid Taylor<\/a>!) that has caused me to\u00a0pause for some serious reflection.\u00a0 Ingrid had noticed in one of my posts my mention of the fact that I had raised pigeons as a youngster in southern California.\u00a0 She loves pigeons and when she and her husband rescued and fostered two homing pigeons, “Chauncey and Clive”, they became deeply attached to them.\u00a0 In her email Ingrid asked me if I “retain any similar affections for pigeons” left over from my childhood.<\/p>\n

Do I ever!\u00a0 When I think back on just how much those few years with my pigeons changed my life for the better I’m simply astounded.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"me,<\/a><\/p>\n

When I was in 6th grade and living in Poway,\u00a0California\u00a0my friend Dennis (on the right in the photo, that’s me on the left) introduced me to the joys of raising pigeons.\u00a0 We each kept a variety of breeds – homers, tumblers, rollers, fantails, tippets, helmets and others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"me<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the pigeon coop that I built from scrap lumber and chicken wire at age 11 in 1959.\u00a0 I spent countless hours in that coop with my pigeons – caring for them, watching their behaviors and reading and then re-reading the huge\u00a0book you see in my hand – “The Pigeon”, by Wendell Mitchell Levi.\u00a0 My parents supported and nurtured my obsession with my birds, largely\u00a0for a reason I found out years later – that it “kept me out of trouble”.\u00a0 And they were probably right…<\/p>\n

It was with my pigeons that my interest in animal behavior germinated.\u00a0 Most days I would spend hours inside that coop with my birds – learning the nuances of behavior and the very real personality quirks of each pigeon.\u00a0\u00a0It was with my pigeons that I\u00a0became what I call a “watcher” (that word always reminds me of the book and movie “Never Cry Wolf”) – someone who revels in the tiny details of the natural world that might be missed by others.<\/p>\n

That interest in nature and science began to\u00a0grow in high school and truly bloomed in college where I had\u00a0the dual majors of Biology and Zoology.\u00a0 Then\u00a0after college I spent the next 33 years of my life teaching those subjects in high school and enjoyed it immensely.\u00a0 \u00a0And my\u00a0“pigeon legacy” didn’t end there – since retirement almost eight years ago my passion has been bird photography.<\/p>\n

So, what do I owe to my pigeons?\u00a0– only 54 years of\u00a0personal and professional joy and satisfaction!\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps that sounds a little dramatic but I’m convinced that it’s true.<\/p>\n

Yes Ingrid, I certainly do retain my affections for pigeons!<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently received an email from one of my blog readers (thank you so much Ingrid Taylor!) that has caused me to\u00a0pause for some serious reflection.\u00a0 Ingrid had noticed in one of my posts my mention of the fact that I had raised pigeons as a youngster in southern California.\u00a0 She loves pigeons and when she and her husband rescued and fostered two homing pigeons, “Chauncey and Clive”, they became deeply attached to them.\u00a0 In her email Ingrid asked me if I “retain any similar affections for pigeons” left over from my childhood. Do I ever!\u00a0 When I think back on just how much those few years with my pigeons changed my life for the better I’m simply astounded.   When I was in 6th grade and living in Poway,\u00a0California\u00a0my friend Dennis (on the right in the photo, that’s me on the left) introduced me to the joys of raising pigeons.\u00a0 We each kept a variety of breeds – homers, tumblers, rollers, fantails, tippets, helmets and others.     This is the pigeon coop that I built from scrap lumber and chicken wire at age 11 in 1959.\u00a0 I spent countless hours in that coop with my pigeons – caring for them, watching their behaviors and reading and then re-reading the huge\u00a0book you see in my hand – “The Pigeon”, by Wendell Mitchell Levi.\u00a0 My parents supported and nurtured my obsession with my birds, largely\u00a0for a reason I found out years later – that it “kept me out of trouble”.\u00a0 And they were probably right……<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334],"tags":[664,665,668,662,663,666,667],"class_list":["post-4658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","tag-california","tag-homing-pigeon","tag-never-cry-wolf","tag-pigeons","tag-poway","tag-the-pigeon","tag-wendell-mitchell-levi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-1d8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}