Pidgey is Back

Back in the summer of ‘69 2016, when Pokémon GO launched, Pidgey was sitting at every corner. In flocks. You could not not catch Pidgey. Along with Caterpie, Weedle and Rattata, Pidgey was used as a vehicle for speeding up leveling, due to the low evolution cost of just 12 candies¹, and the abundance of spawns.

However, being flooded with Pidgey in the wild, combined with Pidgey also hatching from eggs, led to dissatisfaction among the player base, and Niantic reacted at the end of 2016 by reducing spawns. This went so far that, when Pidgey was required in a research quest in 2018, players even complained that Pidgey spawns were too rare to complete the research.

July 2016: Why are there so many Pidgey?

November 2018: Where are all the Pidgey?

— 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚜 𝙾'𝚂𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚊𝚗 (@coffeehacker_) November 2, 2018

With the exception of a spotlight hour featuring Pidgey in 2020 and a few other event boosts, it was quite quiet around the formerly so abundant bird, now displaced by a multitude of different and newer Pokémon spawning.

Since beginning of the last season Mythical Wishes, Pidgey is back in the spawn pool for the cities habitat. As for myself, I still don’t have the shiny, so I will be out there hunting. Remember,

Digression #

Is there a better opportunity to start a blog at a time when fan favorite Pokémon returns to the spawn rotation? I don’t know. Anyway, as you might have noted, there is no previous article link below this post, as this is the first entry to this site. Although Pokémon GO will likely evolve into a recurring theme, it is by no means the plan to make this into a PoGO blog. So please check back even if you are not interested in Pokémon GO.