What to know
- Shane Abernethy of Tommy Thompson Park Bird Research Station, says the pigeons in Toronto look more rotund because they floof up their feathers, especially when it’s cold.
- He explains pigeons will also fluff up their feathers as a display of dominance when there’s more competition from other pigeons in an area.
Have you ever wondered why the pigeons in Toronto seem to look more rotund than pigeons from other cities?
Especially in Downtown Toronto, some of the wild pigeons tend to lean more plump, with Torontonians on TikTok sharing videos of pigeons and asking, “Why is that pigeon so damn fat?”
@pixelfuct Look at the size of that pigeon #toronto #pigeons ♬ original sound – Pixelfuct aka Internet Elvis
In another video, a creator follows a bunch of pigeons around the University of Toronto St. George Campus and expresses disbelief at the birds’ inability to fly.
@elziule UofT pigeons. #fyp #fy #foryou #pigeons #uoft #chonkypigeon #toronto ♬ original sound – Elžbieta Chernyak
“They’re just so chonky!,” she exclaimed in the TikTok video.
Shane Abernethy, the bander in charge at Tommy Thompson Park Bird Research Station, says despite their appearance, the pigeons in Toronto aren’t actually fat.
“Wild animals very rarely get to anything that we could classify as obesity because their activity levels are very high and they’re very good at self regulating their diets,” he explained to Now Toronto.
Abernethy says while birds do gain weight when migrating to account for the lack of food on long-haul flights, the pigeons in Toronto aren’t migratory and don’t tend to pack on the pounds.
So, what causes the pigeons roaming around Toronto to look so well-endowed? Turns out, it’s their feathers being “floofed up” from how cold it gets in Toronto. Pigeons will also fluff up their feathers as a display of dominance when there’s more competition from other pigeons in an area.
“Functionally, feathers are heavily modified scales, and because [feathers are] connected directly to their body, birds have conscious control over them,” he says. “So we often find that in cold conditions, birds will fluff up their feathers, which decreases the available surface area, increases the amount of air that’s packed, and increases their insulation value.”
Not all pigeons are built the same. Abernethy says some pigeons could be larger than others, but the weight gain is usually muscular. Some pigeons have better developed pectoral muscles, but you would have to physically hold a pigeon in your hand to know.
Supplementary feeding from well-meaning people also doesn’t contribute much to a pigeon’s weight. It actually directly affects their breeding habits.
“For the most part, what we see in wild birds, especially, is that supplementary feeding doesn’t really make them fat but it does cause them to produce more young, because they’ll often decide how many eggs they want to lay based on local food availability. And if they have more food to be able to supplement those chicks, then more of them survive,” he explains.
So the next time you see a particularly rotund pigeon waddle around Toronto, keep in mind they’re probably just cold.
