hot

There's a plot of grass in Astoria, near Steinway Street, that has ring-shaped dead patches, not quite a meter in diameter.  Roughly the size of a manhole cover - and my best theory as to what caused them was that the sod was layed over manhole covers, and the seep of air - laden with who-knows-what, up from the lip of these unseen covers, was killing the grass.  Or maybe an oily tire had laid there and poisoned the ground underneath.  Or what?  But then, a while ago, I realized that the rings were worked into the soil - indented by an inch or so.

And this morning, I saw a pigeon pacing this ring - and another pigeon pacing one of the others.  Round and round.  What's going on?

Did the pigeons cause it?  Are the pigeons responding to something?  Why? What? How? Huh?

(My new best guess: manhole covers and pigeons.  I think that plot of grass used to be a parking lot, and the soil was just laid over it.  If there's a drainage system, and what had been drainways have been covered over with manhole covers, the soil may be just a bit cooler around those rings.  Possibly there's a tad of cool air flow, even, up from the dry pipes.  The pigeons may like that, and tread in a cool path, especially on a hot day like this.

Maybe.