waiting for the birds to fly

I guess any substantially-sized church with a prominent plaza and bit of history would be incomplete without its own honorary flock of pigeons. I noticed the pigeons in the plaza of Cuenca's Iglesia Santo Domingo every time I passed by on my walks through the city. Children played with the pigeons. Mothers fed them. Grandfathers shooed them away...it could have been the plaza of any church, anywhere. On one occasion, I was surprised by how much the scene reminded me of a picture my grandfather had taken on a trip to Venice in the late 1950's. In my grandpa's picture, a child stood in the middle of the flock, which swarmed around him or took flight, while adults stood alone or walked in pairs across the plaza.


Venice, 1960's

One day, I waited to catch the pigeons in flight. For ten minutes I stood on the street corner, a gawking tourist with camera in hand, waiting for a magic moment.