This is our 21st spring in the house on Aliso Drive, the longest (by a significant margin) that I’ve lived in the same place. The utility pole in the back corner of our yard has been at the fringe of my perception that whole time. I never completely ignored it, but I never thought much about it until the last few years when I started compiling bird lists and, more recently, taking pictures of the birds in my backyard.
Birds tend to sit on the pole and the lines attached to it. I’ve never given its functional details much thought, but today I counted 28 separate wires coming to and from the pole, which distributes electricity, telephone, cable television and Internet connectivity to three houses. Why so many?
Here is a picture of an American crow, taking flight after a brief perch on the top of the pole:
Crow taking flight from perch on telephone pole, April 2014, by John Fleck
This might be the second in an accidental series of photos of electricity and things. I notice power lines far more in my pictures than I do directly. This has been an intriguing side effect of my new interest in photography – the things I didn’t notice that have been there all the time. Previously:
Nice photo. I have a similar problem in my backyard but I have been vexed by those wires — and countless others around town — for years. Each is a needle in my eye. Someday, people will look at old photos and ask, “why did people put up with that?”