You might reasonably think that the most expensive bird ever purchased was something exotic and rare, like that thing from Up or the life model for Toucan Sam. That’s the trap that those shady guys from Follow That Bird fell into, and they walked away with nothing to show for it but a rap sheet and the unfortunate legacy of being the only Sesame Street characters ever arrested on camera. 

In reality, it turns out that they would’ve done better for themselves spending forty-five minutes under an overpass with a stale olive loaf and a butterfly net. 

The most expensive bird ever sold was, and this is peculiar, a pigeon. Yes, a pigeon: the itchy homeless people of the animal kingdom. According to CNN, in March of 2019, a Chinese financier named Xing Wei broke every record in the book when he bought a Belgian racing pigeon named Armando for $1.4 million. Armando was touted as being the greatest long-distance racing pigeon, like, ever, which probably seemed like damning with faint praise until someone bid seven figures for him.

There’s probably a lesson here about how you can find value in even the most humble of places, but if you’re anything like us, you’re having a hard time hearing it over the thunderous cooing of the 800 feathered rats you just lured into your house in the hopes of an eccentric businessman someday paying for your new Tesla Cybertruck.