An oft overlooked wonder of the urban wilderness, the common pigeon is much more than it appears, with a rich history of aristocratic breeding dating back centuries.

Photographer and native New Yorker Andrew Garn has spent years documenting these creaturing and collecting them into a book titled The New York Pigeon: Behind the Feathers to share their “personalities, expressiveness, glorious feather iridescence, and deeply hued eyes.”

Birds that used to be exchanged between the wealthy as gifts have grown to have different associations, and created a whole industry of pigeon defense systems for urban architecture.

The goal of Garn’s work is, in part, to cast them in a different light (both literally and otherwise), showing the elegance of these creatures when taken out of everyday contexts where some find them to be annoying pests.

Some shots put subjects against dark backgrounds, focusing the viewer necessarily on the birds themselves. Others put them in their urban contexts, highlighting them in flight or perched on windows.

For more on the history of this adaptive series, check out this episode of 99% Invisible. And for more photographs of pigeons at all stages of their lives, see Garn’s website or buy the book.

Not all pigeons are rats with wings. Some of them actually strap on tiny backpacks and go to their jobs every day, just like the rest of us. In fact, a flock of pigeons in London play a central role in monitoring the air pollution in the city, their little black fashion accessories equipped with lightweight sensors that test the levels of nitrogen dioxide and ozone gases, reporting the results on Twitter. Londoners who tweet their locations to @PigeonAir get an instant response from one of the pigeons with the level of air pollution in their area.

Paris-based tech company Plume Labs developed an app that gives residents access to information and advice about pollution in the city, and an interactive live map on the project’s website provides more neighborhood-specific details. A well-known pigeon expert named Brian Woodhouse provided a flock of racing pigeons, which are healthier and hardier than street pigeons, for the mission.

The project was only in action for three days during March, and the pigeons are now taking a break, but the novelty of the miniature backpacks got thousands of city residents talking about air pollution, which kills nearly 9,500 Londoners each year. Now, Plume Labs has turned to human Londoners for assistance, asking them to wear their own sensors to crowdsource detailed readings of air pollution in virtually every corner of the city.

You have to admit, no matter what you think of the pesky birds, the sight of those tiny mesh suits on tiny hangers labeled with each pigeon’s name are ridiculously cute.

In the trash-ridden outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, precariously lofted structures rise up on stilts, home to birds that, come sunset, are set loose as the strange race begins to reroute and capture the free-flying flocks of one’s neighbors. The goal: to use flags and whistles to navigate your own birds and bring them back to their roost, all while hopefully entrapping your neighbors’ pets in the process.

Photographer Manuel Alvarez Diestro (via CityLab) flew in from London to document this bizarre phenomenon. Dating as far back as 4,000 years ago in various forms, this sport-like activity involves breeding, raising, releasing and recapturing huge collections of pigeons.

Garbage City, the informal name of the trash-collecting suburbs surrounding Cairo, plays host to many of participants, its lack of building code regular contributing to the unsteady-looking structures used to house the birds.

Not made to support heavy loads, many of these informal roosts are cobbled together from scraps and assembled like scaffolding from wood and whatever else is available.

PigeonNews gives a great deal of detail on everything from the types and ratings to behaviors of the birds and their masters, including stories of training, endurance and skill as well as sickness, predators and other mishaps.

Notably, pigeon is also eaten in the region, so while many treat it as a hobby or sport, some participants may also have other incentives for breeding (or catching) these birds.

There are as many as 2,000,000 people actively raising these birds in Egypt today, with some people spending hundreds of dollars a month on the upkeep of hundreds of birds.