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T battled through successive sheets of freezing rain on its descent into its destination. A sinking feeling filled me during the flight, intensifying as I made my way through the airport. I resented coming back to the place where I had grown up, after making a home on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an eternity.

After a short while, I headed out to get a my hair cut. My mind was distant, back across an sea, when I heard something smack into the sidewalk. I gazed down to see a bird on its side, sprawled, and twitching.

The crash happened just as kids were streaming out from the local primary school and so within minutes a small chorus of children had formed, surrounded by their mothers and fathers. This circle of puzzled faces peered down at the pigeon, uncertain what to think or act. The kids were more decisive: “Papa, she needs hospital, can we call an ambulance?” I took off my jacket, crouched down and scooped the pigeon inside it. “It’s okay, sweet, the kind man will take care of her!” remarked one mother with a sigh of relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, unintentionally, as I had a short time earlier.

I walked slowly home, arms held out, with the bird tucked safely inside the jacket.

Unbeknownst to me that my impromptu decision to rescue my feathered charge (the name I gave my new friend) would lead me to a community of Mancunians devoting significant amounts of their time to provide not only rescue services for city pigeons but X-rays, respite care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I retrieved a shoebox for Belinda, prepared it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those instances of mutual confusion punctuated my frantic search for what to do from there. I contacted friends for advice and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my astonishment, I discovered a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and put in a request to join.

A Community Effort

Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an organic method: someone in Manchester stumbles across an injured pigeon, a urgent post is created, then a comment section “evaluation” ensues. If the bird is considered in need of an examination, someone with a vet link can get it one; if it needs physio, a “rehabber” will offer to care for the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own carefully cultivated expertise, whether it’s setting broken wings or treating wounds. Their tremendous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by volunteerism.

Belinda was promptly assessed with neurological problems, likely a concussion, and matched with a rehabber who would provide comfort and a program of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to fall from the sky. I assumed the role of bird taxi once more, taking the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could obtain the treatment she deserved.

An Unexpected Lesson

After discovering this underground pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my city. I question any of the places I had lived in while away could boast anything even close. It also occurred to me that this was not the first time I’d been part of a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one fall from the sky into the schoolyard of my old school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the gall to rescue it and take it to safety.

The friend in question has since passed away – one of four friends to lose their lives in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I realised that this had been a major reason of what had made returning home so difficult.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a history as “emotional support” animals, especially in the North. Miners started to keep the birds because they gave them company and an excuse to stare at the sky between long shifts of underground work. During the economic downturn, workers on the unemployment also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

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

It? Not this bird. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has adapted to her newly land-based life with aplomb in a volunteer’s home. Each happy call, often prompted by her favourite food, peas, feels like a demonstration in resilience and fortitude – and I am eternally thankful to her for showing me a new dimension to the city I believed I understood.