Observation: Birds

Welcome to Construction, pardon the A&M!!

There is a particular bird indigenous to urban areas with rapidly growing populations and that is the crane. College Station is one of those areas and cranes are always flying in the sky somewhere over Aggieland.

Here I have captured two cranes that hang prominently in the morning sky. Their existence there is ephemeral — they may not be there next month, or even next week. Their presence may be needed elsewhere, perhaps moving further southwest down University Drive.

Here, on a cloudy morning, two cranes float somewhere along Wellborn Road. There’s just no escaping these birds, one day they’re on one corner of a popular intersection, and the next they’re off down the road by some corner that will soon be the home of thousands of students.

Aggieland is a bustling and growing place. New buildings and apartments are popping up all over the place. Aggieland may never see the end of construction and development, for better or worse.

There is no lack of records describing all the buildings that have once stood over Aggieland. As you walk across Academic Plaza, you can encounter various grassmarkers with plaques that look like headstones. They will list the name of a former building, how long it stood, and the cause of its destruction. Some by razing, others by fire.

Before the beautiful and famous Academic Building stood Old Main, and before Central Campus Garage stood the old A&M Creamery. The Houston Chronicle called said this change made A&M “a little less agricultural.”

I wonder what A&M will look like in a 100 years. And I wonder if those cranes will still be around then.