Reflecting on "The Bothersome Beauty of Pigeons"

-"Pigeons are punks. Looking them in the eye, I'm sure they know this but they just don't care. Yet looking at pigeons also reminds me of my own arrogance, and I both hate them and love them for it."
-"For many children the pigeons are the first contact they have with animals. If a pigeon lands on a child's shoulder, it will paint a good picture in their mind and who then know that animals are worth caring for" ("Proposed").
-The main idea of the essay seems to be exploring the intrinsic quality of humans to want to connect with nature. Though it seemed that initially the author was trying to learn and understand the love hate relationship between humans and pigeons.
-The essay could be interspersed with anecdotes and personal experiences that presented facts but also made the topic more real, much like the author did in the essay in the book. Also it would be helpful to find interesting facts that would intrigue the reader but not bore them.
-The essay was different from the understood norm of research papers mainly due to it's informal nature. It seemed more like a narrative than a research paper that uses many facts strung together by a few sentences. It doesn't really make research more interesting to me because I already find the discovery of new information interesting. The essay does demonstrate that a research is more about discovering something you had not thought about before and in so doing you discover something about yourself.
-I related to the essay in that I empathized with both sides of the argument. Though I have never had the experience of feeding pigeons in a town square, or dealt with them as a pest problem I could imagine the feelings that both instances would create. I learned pigeon poop destroys marble, and there are people out there who really hate pigeons.