Poppies & Pigeons

There's a patch of grass close to where I live that has beautiful poppies growing on it every year. I've been walking past them the last few weeks thinking I should paint one and when I saw them starting to whither last night, I knew it couldn't wait any longer. So today during my lunch break, I got my hat and my painting kit and walked over to find the nicest one.

Not one minute after I started to paint, a gust of wind came and blew away one of the petals! I had to laugh at my bad luck but kept painting. Another ten seconds after, the wind came back and blew away the second and then the last petal. The painting at the top of the post is a composite of my memory and other flowers I used as reference. I'm pretty happy with the color I mixed, even though it's a little too orange. I wish I'd been able to capture the sheen of the petals in the sun but I don't know how to do that yet.

On my way back, I saw someone had fed the pigeon colony that lives in the park. It's a flock of maybe 60 animals, often with some seagulls, sparrows and starlings mixed in. The park they live in is very small, just the size of one big building, and they seem to prefer one side of it, probably because it's shaded. I wish I understood how the pigeons decide to live in that particular park with that particular flock. Are they related? Can pigeons from elsewhere join the flock if they fly by and they like the look of the neighbourhood? Do they leave when they mate and raise their young and come back afterwards?

Anyway, the pigeons were in a feeding frenzy when I walked by, walking over each other to get to the juiciest crumbs. I caught one pigeon who wasn't hungy with my phone camera before leaving and painted her tonight, after work.