• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, November 5, 2025

City dwellers besieged by pigeons on their terraces, balconies, rooftops, parks, public squares and sidewalks may or may not appreciate a new episode of PBS’s “Nature” that reveals the inner lives of urban pigeons.

They might resent a one-hour documentary that appears to celebrate these foul birds for their resourcefulness and survival skills.

A press release describes city pigeons -- officially known as Feral Pigeons -- as “remarkable and resilient.” 

The show acknowledges that pigeons are loved by some and loathed by others. It asserts that pigeons were venerated by ancient Egyptians, although no evidence is presented to support this claim.

The show -- titled “Nature: The Pigeon Hustle” -- takes us on a pigeon’s tour of London and New York to show us how these feral fowl live, eat, make their homes, reproduce, and basically, adapt to their urban environments.

We see them scavenging crumbs dropped by city residents dining al fresco, or being fed in large numbers by people -- sometimes known as “nuts” -- who love to sit in parks or squares tossing great fistfuls of breadcrumbs onto the pavement beneath their feet and then getting a thrill watching pigeons come from miles around to feed.

The show positions these city-dwelling birds as creatures to be respected, if not adored for their hardiness and daredeviltry, as they confidently stroll pigeon-toed into oncoming city traffic to retrieve crumbs amid an onslaught of cars, buses, trucks and motorized two-wheeled vehicles. 

Some of us might look at such behavior and conclude that the urban-dwelling feral pigeon is a bird-brain. But the show believes otherwise.

It is true that, from a naturalist’s point of view, it is fascinating to learn how pigeons survive, evade predators, navigate subway stations and find nesting opportunities in the darndest places.

But the harm that these pigeons cause in the act of living their lives is glossed over, or omitted entirely.

For example, the show reports that among the locations in London where scores of pigeons have built their nests in a thousand nooks and crannies is Blackfriars Bridge over the Thames.

The pigeons reside beneath the roadway of this historic example of mid-19th century engineering and design that was opened by Queen Victoria herself in 1869.

Heaven only knows the damage being done to the structure’s 156-year-old undercarriage by thousands of squatting birds and the waste they produce. This harm goes unmentioned.

In the great tradition of “Nature,” the lives of pigeons are presented with a sense of bemusement and wonder, aided by the voice of former “SNL” cast member Bobby Moynihan who provides the narration.

Wildlife documentaries have long tried to humanize their animal subjects by giving them names.

In “Nature: The Pigeon Hustle,” there is only one example of this -- an inquisitive London pigeon residing at Blackfriars Bridge named Nelson.

Any resemblance between the pigeon named Nelson and the great British Admiral Horatio Nelson, hero of Trafalgar, is purely coincidental.

“Nature: The Pigeon Hustle” airs Wednesday night at 8 Eastern on PBS, PBS.org, YouTube and the PBS app.