Why Pigeons Keep Failing on Escalators | Bird Behavior Explained

The pigeon is a surprisingly adaptable urban creature. It lives on building ledges, scavenges and strolls confidently among humans. Videos of pigeons struggling to navigate escalators regularly go viral. They seemed to be trying to hop onto the moving steps, getting carried upward or downward against their will or flapping in panic mid escalator.

The answer of why pigeons keep losing to escalators is amusing and rooted in science. It basically involves animal behavior, cognition and evolution. Pigeons are not new to cities. They have been living alongside humans for hundreds of years. They were domesticated for food, messaging and even for religious purposes.

Pigeons learn through repetition, observation and association. It works well for navigating city parks, sidewalks and rooftops. An escalator is an unfamiliar and confusing machine for them. It moves continuously and no intuitive beginning or end from the eye level of pigeons. They rely heavily on visual cues and steady surfaces therefore the escalator looks puzzling and moving trap.

They are surprisingly intelligent in many aspects. They are capable of recognizing faces, distinguishing between artistic styles and even understanding abstract concepts. Despite all these capabilities they do have cognitive limits. You can't understand motion in three dimensional mechanical systems.

Escalators move in a way that is not naturally found in the environments of pigeons. They appear solid but move under foot. When pigeon step on to an escalator they may experience cognitive error because their instincts for stable footing are undermined by sudden shift of momentum.

Watching a pigeon get swept up by an escalator looks funny but it also derives empathy. They see a staircase like a broken floor. As the steps move up or down their brain must calculate multiple vectors of motion. This leads to sensory confusion. Many birds after a few failed attempts likely avoid escalators all together. Pigeons do not pass knowledge through generations. So each bird encounters the problem for the first time.