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The plane battled through wall after wall of icy precipitation on its descent into the city. A growing unease had accompanied me during the trip, intensifying as I made my way through the airport. I resented returning to the place where I had grown up, after making a home on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a couple of days, I ventured out to get a haircut. My thoughts was distant, lingering over an vast expanse of water, when I became aware of something hit the sidewalk. I gazed down to see a rock dove on its wings, spatchcocked, and twitching.

The crash took place just as kids were emerging from the local grade school and so within moments a small chorus of youngsters had formed, surrounded by their mums and dads. This group of puzzled faces stared down at the creature, unsure what to do or say. The kids were more certain: “Dad, she needs hospital, can we call an ambulance?” I slipped off my jacket, knelt down and gently lifted the pigeon up into it. “Don’t worry, love, the kind man will look after her!” remarked one mum with a audible relief. I had turned into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, against its will, as I had a couple of days prior.

I made my way home, arms stiffly extended, with the bird curled up inside the garment.

I had no idea that my impromptu decision to rescue Belinda (the name I chose for my patient) would direct me to a community of Mancunians devoting significant amounts of time to provide not only ambulances for feral pigeons but scans, convalescence, and even “pigeon physio”.

I found a cardboard box for Belinda, placed inside it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those instances of common bewilderment punctuated my hectic search for what to do after that. I called friends for advice and one proposed trying Facebook, where, to my amazement, I found a bird rehabilitation group, and put in a request to join.

A Community Effort

Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an decentralized system: someone in Manchester discovers an injured pigeon, a heartfelt post is made, then a comment section “assessment” ensues. If the bird is deemed in need of an X-ray, someone with a connection to a clinic can organize it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “carer” will offer to care for the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own carefully cultivated expertise, 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 quickly assessed with brain trauma, likely a head injury, and matched with a rehabber who would give comfort and a regimen of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to fall from the sky. I resumed the role of pigeon ambulance once more, boarding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could get the care she needed.

An Unexpected Lesson

After finding this hidden pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much better about being back in my home town. I am skeptical any of the places I had resided in while away could have anything comparable. It also occurred to me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one plummet from the sky into the grounds of my secondary school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the nerve to pick it up and take it to a safe place.

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

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a tradition as “companion” animals, especially in the North. Miners started to care for the birds because they gave them solace and an excuse to look up at the heavens between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the unemployment also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as simple, dirty or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a vet, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave it in the car park and we’ll end its life.”

That? Not her. Although improbable to ever take to the skies , she has adapted to her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s extra room. Each satisfied coo, often prompted by her favourite treat, vegetables, feels like a demonstration in resilience and strength – and I am forever grateful to her for revealing to me a new dimension to the city I believed I understood.