Are London's pigeons misunderstood?

So-called 'rats with wings' are luring in a new legion of devoted fans

- Claudia Cockerell

If there's one thing Londoners can unite over, it's revulsion for pigeons. No one likes their gammy feet or their predilection for spattering on cars, buildings and monuments. They are the bane of an office lunch on a park bench, especially when a flock of them flaps into the air around you for no apparent reason. People think they are vermin, "rats with wings", and they deserve all the bad PR they get.

But something is shifting. And are Londoners late to the party? Pigeons have landed a PR coup with younger generations, who are learning to love them. On TikTok (where else?), the hashtag #pigeontok has more than 150 million views, and there are pigeons with cult followings.

One of the most famous pigeons on the app (in what is a surprisingly competitive field) is a New York rescue called Pidge. A video of Pidge being bathed in the shower, wrapped in a towel and stroked by her owner, Abby Jardine, has more than one million likes. Jardine, 27, discovered the pigeon last June nosing around a dumpster next to her apartment in Brooklyn.

"She was probably three or four weeks old, and should have still been in her nest at the time," Jardine says. When it was still there after several days and looking increasingly scraggly, Jardine scooped it up and took it back to her home. She had planned on taking it to a wildlife rescue centre, but feelings got in the way. "Within five minutes, she was cuddly, and like, sitting on my shoulder," Jardine says. "I kind of just fell in love with her."