Why Do So Many Pigeons Hang Around T Stops? Boston's Data Has an Answer.

You've felt it. You descend into the Courthouse station and there they are — pigeons, perched on every ledge, strutting across the platform, unbothered by the trains or the people or anything.

Courthouse isn't just anecdotally bad. It's statistically dominant.

According to 17 years of Boston 311 service request data — every complaint, dead bird pickup request, and infestation report filed by residents from 2008 through 2025 — Courthouse station alone accounts for 6.2% of all pigeon reports citywide. That's more than 1 in every 16 pigeon complaints across the entire city, concentrated at a single T stop.

The Numbers Behind the Birds

Boston residents have filed 2,305 pigeon-related 311 reports between December 2008 and November 2025. That includes everything from infestation complaints to requests to pick up a dead bird on the sidewalk.

Raw counts tell part of the story. One report in 2008. 308 reports in 2025 — the highest annual total on record, surpassing the previous peak of 273 in 2023.

But raw counts can mislead. Boston's 311 system grew from roughly 7,500 annual reports in 2008 to over 224,000 in 2025, a 2,881% increase driven by smartphone adoption and app awareness. More people using the system means more reports for everything.

So we normalized.

When you measure pigeon reports per 10,000 total 311 submissions, the trend is still striking: the rate has increased from 1.33 to 13.72 per 10,000 reports — a 10-fold increase over 17 years. And 2025's normalized rate is nearly double 2023's. Something is accelerating.

Transit as Pigeon Infrastructure

The most striking finding in the data isn't the volume — it's the geography.

68% of all Boston pigeon reports occur within 500 meters of an MBTA rapid transit station. That's roughly a 5–6 minute walk, the standard pedestrian catchment zone for transit stops. In 2008, just one pigeon report existed total. By 2016, that spatial clustering had locked in at 65–80% near T stops — and has stayed there ever since.

Transit stations are, it turns out, ideal pigeon habitat. Elevated structures provide nesting ledges. Enclosed spaces trap warmth. Underground concourses create wind-protected roosts. And commuters — eating, dropping food, moving quickly — provide an irregular but reliable food supply. A busy T stop is essentially a purpose-built pigeon apartment complex.

Here's where the complaints are actually coming from, ranked by share of all-time citywide pigeon reports:

The 2025 Surge

Four stations stand out for sharp increases in their share of 2025 reports compared to their historical average: North Station (+63%), Airport (+57%), JFK/UMass (+60%), and Bowdoin (+73%).

These stations are spread across the system — North End/downtown, East Boston, Dorchester, and the Blue Line terminus near Government Center — suggesting this isn't a neighborhood-specific phenomenon. It's system-wide.

What changed in 2025? We don't know definitively. But station-level infrastructure — aging beams, gaps in netting, deferred maintenance — combined with the compounding effect of year-over-year population growth creates the conditions for these spikes. Once a pigeon colony establishes a roost, it tends to stay.

What Are People Actually Reporting?

The breakdown of pigeon complaint types reveals something important about who's dealing with this problem:

• 51% are dead animal pickup requests — pigeons dying on sidewalks, stoops, and streets
• 18% are general nuisance complaints
• 14% are pigeon infestation reports, the kind that come with droppings on buildings or large congregations blocking pedestrian space
• 6% are animal control requests

The infestation category matters. Filing a formal infestation complaint with the city's Inspectional Services department is a more deliberate act than calling about a single dead bird. Fourteen percent infestation — 323 reports over 17 years — signals that residents aren't just occasionally annoyed. They're experiencing persistent, concentrated problems.

---

We track pigeon sightings alongside rats, coyotes, turkeys, and everything else Boston throws at you. See what's near your T stop on the map.