In Pokémon GO, there are some monsters that are very hard to get. A whole collection of them has escaped from a trainer.
While many trainers in Pokémon GO strive to own better and stronger monsters to dominate the various battle modes in the game, there are others who are on the lookout for the rarest monsters in the game.
Some of the rarest Pokémon in the game are the 3 Galar birds. The shiny variants are even rarer than the regular birds. And curiously, a trainer missed all of them. The cause of this is a small gadget that is supposed to help with catching.
One Year, 3 Losses
What happened to the trainer? In a post on Reddit, he shows a montage of 3 parts of his journal in Pokémon GO. In the journal, you can find information about various activities such as caught or fled Pokémon, completed raids, or spun PokéStops.
The image shows that he encountered all 3 legendary Galar birds in their shiny variants between October 2024 and September 29, 2025, and they fled. And this, even though legendary shiny Pokémon are supposed to be a guaranteed catch if you encounter the monster and have balls available.
We embed the Reddit post here for you:
Why did the monsters flee? As the trainer reports, he used his Go Plus+ during the times when the daily adventure incense was active and the birds could appear. This is an official gadget from Pokémon GO, which allows you to automate catching monsters, among other things.
With the Go Plus+, you can choose between 2 different catching modes: automatic catching and catching by pressing the gadget. The trainer had the first of the two modes active. In this mode, a simple Pokéball is generally used with a simple throw, without a curveball.
2 commentators explain in the post why this is problematic for the Galar birds. User Galimor explains: “It throws a single straight throw with a red ball and without a berry and misses the ‘Good’, ‘Great’, and ‘Excellent’ levels. If the Pokémon breaks out, it flees”.
Then Contank clarifies why even a legendary shiny monster can flee, even though this is usually not possible in the game. He writes: “The GO Plus attempts to catch a Pokémon once, and then forces it to flee if the catch fails. All usual rules are overridden”.
How can the problem be avoided? If you use a Go Plus+ yourself and are on the hunt for the legendary birds, you should disable the gadget during the use of the daily adventure incense for safety.
Additionally, user OSRS_Socks adds in the post: “Always use ‘Click to Catch’ when using the daily adventure incense”.
October has started. And with the new month, there are also many contents like raids, events, or spotlight hours that take place in Pokémon GO. If you want an overview of this, then check out our overview with all events in October 2025 in Pokémon GO.
