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Our aircraft pushed through wall after wall of freezing rain on its descent into the city. A growing unease had accompanied me during the trip, growing stronger as I walked through the terminal. I felt bitter over having to be the town where I had grown up, after living on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a short while, I ventured out to get a trim. My thoughts was far away, back across an vast expanse of water, when I heard something smack into the ground. I gazed down to see a pigeon on its side, sprawled, and convulsing.

The fall took place just as schoolchildren were streaming out from the local grade school and so within minutes a group of youngsters had formed, surrounded by their mums and dads. This circle of confused faces stared down at the creature, not knowing what to think or act. The kids were more definitive: “Daddy, she needs help, can we call an ambulance?” I slipped off my anorak, knelt down and gently lifted the pigeon up into it. “Don’t worry, sweet, the gentleman will help her!” exclaimed one parent with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, involuntarily, as I had a short time earlier.

I walked slowly home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird curled up inside the garment.

Little did I know that my spontaneous decision to aid the bird (the name I chose for my new friend) would lead me to a network of city dwellers sacrificing significant amounts of their time to provide not only transport for street birds but scans, convalescence, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I located a small container for Belinda, placed inside it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those moments of mutual perplexity marked my frantic search for what to do from there. I phoned friends for advice and one proposed trying online groups, where, to my amazement, I stumbled upon a local pigeon rescue group, and submitted a request to become a member.

An Anarchic Model

Over 3,000-strong, the group follows an anarchic system: someone in Manchester stumbles across an hurt pigeon, a heartfelt post is made, then a comment section “evaluation” takes place. If the bird is judged in need of an examination, someone with a connection to a clinic can arrange it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabber” will volunteer to care for the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own highly developed specialities, whether it’s setting broken wings or dressing wounds. Their tremendous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on volunteerism.

Belinda was rapidly diagnosed with a neurological issue, likely a head injury, and assigned to a rehabber who would administer comfort and a program of careful physio. We never learned exactly what made her to drop from above. I took up the role of bird taxi once more, riding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could receive the care she deserved.

A New Perspective

After stumbling across this underground pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my hometown. I am skeptical any of the places I had resided in while away could have anything even close. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one drop from the sky into the schoolyard of my secondary school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the gall to scoop it up and take it to security.

The individual has since been lost – one of several friends to die in the years before my departure from Manchester. I understood that this had been a significant factor of what had made returning home so hard.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the north of England. Laborers started to care for the birds because they gave them solace and an opportunity to gaze up at the sky between long shifts of darkness below. During the Depression, workers on the dole also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as unintelligent, dirty or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave that in the lot and we’ll end its life.”

It? Not this bird. Although not expected to ever take to the skies , she has adapted to her newly land-based life with grace in a volunteer’s extra room. Each satisfied call, often elicited by her favourite treat, frozen peas, feels like a demonstration in perseverance and strength – and I am always appreciative to her for unveiling for me a different facet to the city I thought I knew.