A weekly 90-minute stroll through Philadelphia's Italian Market has turned pigeon-watching into a bona fide tourist draw, with more than 1,100 people signing up to look closely at birds most city dwellers walk right past. The tours, run by a couple who started the whole thing almost by accident, now stop at some of the neighborhood's most established flocks and spend as much time on pigeon history as on pigeon-spotting.
From a One-Off Walk to a Sold-Out Business
Philly Pigeon Tours was started by partners Hannah Michelle Brower, 34, and Aspen Simone, 36, who are described as pigeon owners themselves, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The paper reports the pair's first tour was organized as a one-off and sold out all 25 available slots, with demand only growing from there. The business reportedly took shape after that first walk sold out and attendees asked for more, according to CBS News.
The tours began last year after Brower and Simone lost their jobs due to federal budget cuts, per the same account from Axios, which reports the walks now run Saturday through Monday, meeting at the Get A Gato cafe at 10 a.m. Tickets run $25 for adults and $10 for children ages 4 and up, the outlet notes. Each outing lasts 90 minutes and moves through pigeon-rich pockets of the Italian Market.
Loaner Binoculars and a History Lesson
Guides hand out loaner binoculars and teach basic birdwatching skills at the start of each walk, according to the tour's own website, Philly Pigeon Tours. The group visits a large flock so participants can observe a range of behaviors, colors, and patterns, and sometimes spot baby pigeons along the way, the site states. The tour also digs into roughly 5,000 years of pigeon history, casually working through millennia of human-pigeon interaction while pushing back against the bird's reputation as a nuisance, per the Inquirer's reporting.
That reputation, Brower says, is a relatively recent development. She told CBS News that public attitudes toward pigeons did not really sour until the mid-1900s, after thousands of years in which people and pigeons largely coexisted without the modern stigma. The site explains that the tours explore how people and pigeons have related throughout history, tracing a relationship that predates the bird's current status as an urban punchline.
A Rescued Bird Named Primrose
Brower's own turnaround on pigeons started with a single bird. She used to dislike them, but that changed in 2022 after she found one that appeared sick or injured and nursed it back to health, according to CBS News reporting in Philadelphia's coverage of the couple's story. She has said the experience reshaped her entire outlook, and that she fell for the bird because it was, in her words, cute and scruffy.
That bird, now named Primrose, turned out to be too human-oriented to survive back on the streets after recovering, so Brower and Simone adopted her, the station reports. The Inquirer describes Primrose as a free-roaming indoor pigeon who lives with the couple, and CBS News reports that Primrose is fully domesticated and enjoys baths, blowouts, and being petted. Brower and Simone have a pigeon living in their apartment every single day as a result, a far cry from the woman who once couldn't stand the birds.
Curiosity for Things People Walk Past Every Day
Brower has said her goal is simple: get people to notice what's already around them. She told CBS News that city dwellers often see pigeons constantly without ever really paying attention to them, and that the tour is designed to spark curiosity about the mundane, everyday things people pass by without a second glance. The tours even field visitor questions about pigeon quirks, including why the birds tend to face into the wind, which the tour attributes to feathers that streamline from front to back.
The draw has stretched well beyond Philadelphia. Sold-out tours have drawn travelers from California and Ohio, while travelers from France have inquired about tickets, according to Haverford College. CBS News reports that Tripadvisor currently ranks Philly Pigeon Tours as the third most popular tour in Philadelphia, a notable feat for an outing built entirely around a bird most tourists would otherwise ignore.
Expanding Beyond the Italian Market
The business has grown past its original walking route. Philly Pigeon Tours now offers private tours for groups of up to 25 people, as well as youth programs designed specifically for kids and teens ages 8 to 18, per the organization's program listings. The Inquirer reports that Brower and Simone plan to launch tours in West Philadelphia soon, with Old City walks expected to follow in the spring.
Haverford's account of the couple's work also describes West Philly pigeon tours already underway, along with a first New York City pigeon tour hosted in December. The pigeon tour is also included among more than 40 guided Philadelphia tours spanning history, art, food, and ghost walks compiled by Visit Philadelphia, placing the pigeon-watching walk alongside the city's more traditional sightseeing offerings. For a couple who started with one sold-out walk and a rescued bird named Primrose, that's a flock of options nobody saw coming.
