PR for pigeons: Woman’s mission to give the birds a better image

Hannah believes one reason people don’t like pigeons is because there are so many feral ones.

“The whole reason there are loads of them is because when we didn’t need them any more, we abandoned them,” she says.

“So it’s like if we all of a sudden all went, ‘do you know what? I don’t think we should keep dogs as pets any more, let’s all turf our dogs out into the street’, and there would be dogs everywhere.”

People have complained that pigeons cause a nuisance when they nest in cities – where there is a food supply – and leave droppings on buildings.

This is something the charity eventually hopes to tackle, by encouraging councils to make better nesting sites for pigeons, keeping buildings safe.

But for now the charity is aiming to “gently push” its ethos, for example by making social media content that tells people about pigeon history.

“I often make funny videos on the TikTok channel about how they served us in World War Two,” says Hannah.

“And funny videos about how the robin keeps getting crowned Britain’s national bird and the pigeon has done so much more for the nation than the robin has, videos like that.

“We are not expecting everybody to suddenly fall in love with them, we’re just expecting or hoping that people will be humane and at least not cause any unnecessary cruelty.”