Toronto pigeon subway

Video shows Toronto pigeon expertly boarding the subway

Pigeons are the new raccoons around here, if you haven't heard.

Cute, funny, obsessed with eating garbage and prone to making messes, the ubiquitous street bird has much in common with Toronto's beloved nightboi community—chiefly the fact that it's way smarter than most people give it credit for.

Case in point number 50 million: This little guy who fully understands how to wait for, walk onto, and ride an underground subway train in Canada's largest city.

Pigeons aren't new to public transit in Toronto. In fact, sightings of rock pigeons on TTC streetcars and subways have become quite common in recent years (likely due to more people having cameras in their pockets now).

What makes the above video special is that it proves intent—the pigeon didn't just haplessly waddle aboard the train at Islington station. It seems to have walked into that subway car on purpose.  

"Stood back from the yellow line and let others depart the train before boarding," joked one person on Reddit, where the clip was posted on Tuesday.  "More courteous than most regular riders!"

Another commenter shared footage of a pigeon getting off the subway at Kipling, joking "now I feel bad for kicking him off at Kipling on Sunday... Hope he didn't get fired for tardiness."

The original video's poster confirmed that the Islington pigeon was indeed spotted on Sunday boarding a train headed toward Kipling.

"Same pigeon?" he or she asked, to which the second poster said "Probably!"

"This was an empty train about to head back east, around 5:45 maybe," wrote the Kipling Station pigeon spotter. "We shoo'd him off, and then he just walked along and tried to come in the next door and the next door... he was a pro."

Lead photo by

u/UnstableParallel


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