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The plane battled through wall after wall of freezing rain during the approach into the city. A sinking feeling had accompanied me during the journey, only deepening as I shuffled through the arrivals hall. I resented having to be the place where I had grown up, after residing on the far side of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a short while, I headed out to get a haircut. My mind was far away, focused on an sea, when I became aware of something hit the sidewalk. I looked down to see a bird on its side, spatchcocked, and trembling.

The fall happened just as children were emerging from the local elementary school and so within a short time a little crowd of children had formed, accompanied by their parents. This circle of puzzled faces stared down at the creature, not knowing what to think or act. The kids were more definitive: “Daddy, she needs a vet, can we call an emergency service?” I took off my anorak, crouched down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “It’s okay, sweet, the kind man will look after her!” exclaimed one mum with a audible relief. I had become the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, unintentionally, as I had a short time earlier.

I walked slowly home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird tucked safely inside the coat.

I had no idea that my impromptu decision to aid my feathered charge (the name I bestowed upon my patient) would lead me to a web of Mancunians sacrificing significant amounts of time to provide not only ambulances for city pigeons but diagnostic imaging, respite care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I found a cardboard box for Belinda, placed inside 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 awkwardly lock eyes.

Those periods of mutual perplexity interrupted my hectic search for what to do after that. I contacted friends for advice and one recommended trying online groups, where, to my amazement, I stumbled upon a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and put in a request to join.

A Community Effort

Boasting thousands of members, the group operates on an decentralized system: someone in Manchester discovers an ailing pigeon, a urgent post is created, then a comment section “evaluation” takes place. If the bird is considered in need of an examination, someone with a veterinary contact can arrange it; if it needs therapy, a “rehabber” will offer to foster the bird.

Volunteers each have their own finely honed skills, whether it’s setting broken wings or treating wounds. Their momentous, collective effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by volunteerism.

Belinda was rapidly diagnosed with brain trauma, likely a blow to the head, and placed with a rehabber who would administer pain relief and a course of patient physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to fall from the sky. I assumed the role of pigeon ambulance once more, taking the light rail across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could receive the treatment she needed.

A New Perspective

After stumbling across this secret pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much better about being back in my home town. I doubt any of the places I had lived in while away could have anything comparable. It also dawned on me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one plummet from the sky into the playground of my secondary school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the gall to scoop it up and take it to a safe place.

The friend in question has since been lost – one of a number of companions to die in the years before my departure from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made the return so hard.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “companion” animals, especially in the certain regions. Miners started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an opportunity to gaze up at the heavens between long shifts of darkness below. During the Depression, workers on the dole also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “despair”.

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

That? Not our Belinda. Although improbable to ever take to the skies , she has embraced her newly earthbound life with success in a volunteer’s home. Each satisfied coo, often elicited by her favourite treat, frozen peas, feels like a example in adaptability and strength – and I am eternally thankful to her for showing me another side to the city I believed I understood.