Hi Bill! Me again! This time it’s not about Sunlight, rather it’s my pidgeots newly hatched pidgey. I named him lucky after he survived a rather serious accident that left him grounded for almost 3 months. Now he’s all healthy again but he is terrified of flying higher than my shoulders, about 160 cm. Is there anything I can do to help him overcome this? I’d love to take him with me when I hike since his mama is getting up in her years and doesn’t have all the energy anymore.

Actually, the best thing you can do is let Lucky’s mama do the healing. A mother knows best how to coax their child into being the best they can be, and I have no doubt your pidgeot recognizes that Lucky is struggling. Let her show him that there’s nothing wrong with flying. The fact that she needs to take it slow will work to her advantage: it means her lessons will be slow and easy for Lucky to handle.

Above all else, be supportive and patient throughout this process. Let Lucky rest when he needs to, but offer words of encouragement and place him back with his mother when he’s ready. He won’t be ready to fly above your shoulder height within days, but perhaps over months, he’ll slowly climb in altitude until he’s soaring.

Best of luck!

The Pidgey Line

{Short note of explanation: The following is a complete rewrite of the pidgey line’s pokédex entries, rather than simply an entry for mega pidgeot. This probably won’t be a common thing but rather just a thing that might happen from time to time with the least funny entries. Sorry! Carry on!}

Pidgey
The Tiny Birb Pokémon
Type: Normal/Flying
Official Registration #: 16
Entry: A small, extremely common bird-like pokémon native to Kanto. This pokémon is popular among younger trainers, not only for how easy it is to catch and train but also because humans apparently take delight in calling a nearly direct descendant of the majestic dinosaur pokémon “birb,” “smol boi,” and/or “four pounds of whoop-[EXPLETIVE].”

Pidgeotto
The Birb Pokémon
Type: Normal/Flying
Official Registration #: 17
Entry: The evolved form of pidgey, by battle experience. The crest on its head is a set of feathers that help stabilize this pokémon during high-speed flight. However, the author will not discourage anyone from assuming that they are “leafs” that pidgeotto “wears on its head to enhance its beauties.”

Pidgeot
The Birb Pokémon
Type: Normal/Flying
Official Registration #: 18
Entry: The evolved form of pidgeotto, by battle experience. The author can neither confirm nor deny whether or not this pokémon would sell its trainers to Giratina for one corn chip, but he can say it’s more likely for pidgeot to do it than honchkrow.

Mega Pidgeot
The Birb Pokémon
Type: Normal/Flying
Official Registration #: 18+
Entry: The advanced form of pidgeot, via pidgeotite. This bird-like pokémon keeps itself in the air by sheer force of anger alone. You may think the author is quoting yet another bird-themed meme, but actually, no, that is a literal and scientifically accurate statement.

My 5 years ago, I rescued a pidgey with a broken wing. She became my starter Pokémon. She’s done fine, until recently, when she evolved into a pidgeot. Now she’s having trouble flying long distances, as though her wing has broken again, and she’s useless in sky battles. Any suggestions?

Before anything else, take her to your local pokémon center. While it’s unlikely to be related to her injury five years ago (you would have seen plenty of warning signs throughout these past five years if her wing didn’t heal correctly), she may have suffered from rare complications from evolution, or she may have developed arthritis—the latter especially if she was an older pidgey when you found her.

Either way, Nurse Joy may be able to offer treatment solutions for your pidgeot. If the issue stems from evolution complications, your pidgeot may need corrective surgery followed by physical therapy, but over time, she’ll regain full use of her wing.

Arthritis may be more complicated to deal with, and I’m afraid that if it’s this, your pidgeot won’t be able to participate in sky battles anymore. However, with therapy, she may at least return to the battlefield and keep herself in the air for somewhat longer periods of time (depending on her personal condition).

When my Pidgeot was a little Pidgey, my neighbors Poochyena got hold of him and tore his wing up. I took him to a Pokémon center, and he seemed fine. Fast forward, hes now a pidgeot, but his wing bothers him and he can’t fly more than a few miles. I think it’s causing him self esteem issues, because he seems really depressed. Any suggestions?

Sometimes, the older a pokémon gets, the more past injuries come back to haunt them, so to speak, especially if those injuries were particularly traumatic.

However, keep in mind that just because a pokémon can no longer function in certain ways due to physical disabilities doesn’t mean they can’t function at all. You therefore have two options, anonymous. The first is work with your local pokémon center to develop a training regimen that builds your pidgeot’s endurance. There is always a chance that he can regain use of his wing with regular therapy and exercise.

On the other hand, your second option is to change your training regimen. Focus on quick, powerful attacks (not literally Quick Attack, although this too) and teach your pidgeot either Roost or Toxic or both. When training and battling, teach him to fire off one of his wing- or wind-based moves, then land and use Roost or run about on the ground, perhaps while outlasting an opponent thanks to Toxic.

If you don’t typically battle, train your pidgeot to be quick on his feet (literally this time) and perhaps to use his wings for other means (such as secondary hands, which many handless pokémon can do—take scyther, for instance).

The point of the second option is simple: if your pidgeot can’t regain his flight endurance, then it’s important to teach him other ways of moving or making use of his body so that he can continue to feel valid as an individual and useful at that. The more you can reassure him that he’s valuable to you and your team (or that he is, in general, still a perfectly valid pidgeot) despite his inability to fly as far as pidgeot with perfectly healthy wings, the easier it will be for him to understand that flying and his identity are not inseparable concepts.

Of course, if by “bother” you mean that your pidgeot is in physical constant pain, I urge you to take the first option before trying the second as that would be humane, but aside from that, if your pidgeot simply can’t fly for long distances before his wing gives out, at the very least, the second option may help ease his mind a bit.

Best of luck, anonymous!

The Pidgey Line

Pidgey
The Tiny Bird Pokémon
Type: Normal/Flying
Official Registration #: 16
Entry: A small, normally docile pokémon that is extremely common to Kanto and Johto. As such, along with rattata, pidgey are typically among the first pokémon a beginning Kantonian trainer captures. This is made all the easier thanks to the fact that pidgey also prefer kicking up sand using low-powered gusts of wind at ground level before fleeing, rather than engaging in a proper battle, but its small wings and the amount of energy it expends in blinding its foe make it difficult to get away quickly. Still, as a pokémon not known for either its battle prowess or its defensive capabilities, it, too, tends to be permanently stored rather quickly, but as of late, it has enjoyed an upsurge in popularity, partly because of pidgeot’s newly discovered mega evolution and partly because, according to the internet, it is “an adorable birb” who “wears leaf for enhance its beauties.”

Pidgeotto
The ~~Birb~~ Bird Pokémon
Type: Normal/Flying
Official Registration #: 17
Entry: The evolved form of pidgey, by battle experience. Like many other pokémon, evolution grants pidgeotto more confidence and aggression. It goes from being a docile pokémon to a highly territorial one that tends to claim a large swath of land as its home. Additionally, it possesses keen eyesight and the ability to swoop down onto prey from great heights and snatch its target with deadly claws. However, what it has not outgrown from its days as a pidgey is its love for bread, so travelers hiking through Kanto should beware when carrying sandwiches.

Pidgeot
The Bird Pokémon
Type: Normal/Flying
Official Registration #: 18
Entry: The evolved form of pidgeotto, by battle experience. While pidgeotto’s aggression calms a bit upon evolution, its hunting behaviors otherwise remain the same. In fact, pidgeot’s sharpened eyesight, its ability to fly at Mach-2 speeds, and its capacity to generate hurricane-strength winds make pidgeot far more deadly than its much more hostile pre-evolution. Luckily, pidgeot only exist naturally in the mountains around Victory Road, so most trainers needn’t worry about the fate of their sandwiches. Strong trainers thinking of challenging the Elite Four, however, are a different matter, but by then, you might already be aware of the sizable list of pokémon that would also do unspeakable things to you for a sandwich and any fish-like meat inside it. In short, the deadliest object a trainer can carry with them throughout their journey is a tuna fish sandwich.