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Our aircraft forced its way through wall after wall of sleet during the approach into its destination. A sinking feeling filled me during the journey, intensifying as I shuffled through the airport. I felt bitter over coming back to the place where I had spent my youth, after making a home on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a couple of days, I went out to get a haircut. My attention was miles away, focused on an sea, when I heard something smack into the ground. I looked down to see a bird on its back, sprawled, and twitching.

The impact happened just as kids were emerging from the local primary school and so within minutes a little crowd of youngsters had formed, accompanied by their mothers and fathers. This group of bemused faces peered down at the pigeon, not knowing what to do or say. The kids were more decisive: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an emergency service?” I took off my anorak, crouched down and scooped the pigeon up into it. “Don’t worry, dear, the kind man will look after her!” remarked one mother with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the ambulance for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, unintentionally, as I had a short time earlier.

I trudged home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird nestled inside the jacket.

I had no idea that my spontaneous decision to medivac the bird (the name I gave my new friend) would lead me to a web of local residents devoting significant amounts of effort to provide not only rescue services for feral pigeons but diagnostic imaging, convalescence, and even “pigeon physio”.

I retrieved a cardboard box for Belinda, prepared it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those instances of common perplexity interrupted my desperate search for what to do after that. I called friends for suggestions and one proposed trying online groups, where, to my astonishment, I found a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to become a member.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group has an anarchic model: someone in Manchester discovers an injured pigeon, a urgent post is made, then a comment section “assessment” follows. If the bird is judged in need of an scan, someone with a connection to a clinic can organize it; if it needs physio, a “rehabilitator” will volunteer to care for the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own finely honed expertise, whether it’s setting broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their significant, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on volunteerism.

Belinda was quickly diagnosed with brain trauma, likely a concussion, and placed with a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a program of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to drop from above. I assumed the role of pigeon ambulance once more, riding the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could get the attention she required.

A New Perspective

After discovering this hidden pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my city. I question any of the places I had called home while away could claim anything remotely similar. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one plummet from the sky into the playground of my high school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the gall to pick it up and take it to safety.

The individual has since passed away – one of four friends to pass away in the years before my exit from Manchester. I realised that this had been a major reason of what had made coming back so hard.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the north of England. Miners started to care for the birds because they gave them company and an opportunity to gaze up at the open air between long shifts of underground work. During the Depression, workers on the dole also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “idleness”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as simple, dirty or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring that here, leave it in the lot and we’ll euthanise it.”

It? Not her. Although not expected to ever soar , she has adapted to her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each happy coo, often caused by her favourite snack, peas, feels like a example in adaptability and strength – and I am always appreciative to her for showing me another side to the city I thought I knew.