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The plane battled through successive sheets of sleet during the approach into the city. A sinking feeling settled over me during the trip, growing stronger as I shuffled through the airport. I was unhappy about returning to the city where I had spent my youth, after making a home on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an eternity.

After a short while, I ventured out to get a haircut. My attention was miles away, back across an sea, when I was startled by something smack into the sidewalk. I glanced down to see a pigeon on its side, spatchcocked, and convulsing.

The impact took place just as children were filing out from the local elementary school and so within a short time a little crowd of children had assembled, flanked by their parents. This ring of puzzled faces looked down at the bird, uncertain what to do or say. The kids were more decisive: “Daddy, she needs a vet, can we call an emergency service?” I slipped off my anorak, knelt down and picked up the pigeon into it. “Don’t worry, sweet, the nice man will take care of her!” exclaimed one parent with a sigh of relief. I had become the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just come down hard, against its will, as I had a short time earlier.

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

Little did I know that my on-the-spot decision to aid my feathered charge (the name I bestowed upon my new friend) would lead me to a community of Mancunians giving up significant amounts of effort to provide not only transport for city pigeons but scans, convalescence, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I located a shoebox 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 moments of shared perplexity interrupted my frantic search for what to do after that. I contacted friends for guidance and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my astonishment, I stumbled upon a bird rehabilitation group, and put in a request to join.

A Grassroots Network

Boasting thousands of members, the group has an organic system: someone in Manchester finds an hurt pigeon, a urgent post is made, then a comment section “assessment” ensues. If the bird is judged in need of an examination, someone with a vet link can get it one; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabber” will volunteer to care for the bird.

Carers each have their own highly developed skills, whether it’s repairing broken wings or treating wounds. Their tremendous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on goodwill.

Belinda was quickly diagnosed with a neurological issue, likely a blow to the head, and matched with a rehabber who would provide medication and a course of patient physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to drop from above. I resumed the role of avian courier once more, riding the tram across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could get the attention she needed.

An Unexpected Lesson

After stumbling across this secret pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my hometown. I question any of the places I had called home while away could boast anything even close. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one fall from the sky into the grounds of my old school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the courage to pick it up and take it to security.

The individual has since died – one of several friends to pass away in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made returning home so hard.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a tradition as “emotional support” animals, especially in the North. Laborers started to keep the birds because they gave them company and an reason to gaze up at the open air between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the dole also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as unintelligent, diseased or a pest. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a vet, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave it in the lot and we’ll end its life.”

It? Not this bird. Although unlikely to ever fly again , she has taken to her newly land-based life with grace in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each happy coo, often caused by her favourite food, peas, feels like a lesson in resilience and strength – and I am eternally thankful to her for showing me a different facet to the city I was familiar with.