How hot is it?

It’s so hot that the pigeons have given up. Rather than strut around their little poop-splattered kingdoms under the El tracks, or dive-bomb pedestrians in their petty turf wars, they’re lying down and calling it quits. I saw two pigeons today do this:

This is what defeat looks like.

Not even quite that. There was shade to be had, but it looked like they just couldn’t even make it that far, so they were sitting in direct sunlight, at noon, waiting for death. They each had the right wing out a little, as if it were sheltering something, but I saw nothing under the wing, just a patch of shade that did them no good. Poor little pigeons.

That’s right, it’s so hot out that even pigeons are inspiring sympathy.

Photo from here.