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Our aircraft forced its way through successive sheets of icy precipitation as it landed into Manchester. A growing unease filled me during the flight, growing stronger as I shuffled through the arrivals hall. I resented coming back to the city where I had grown up, 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 ventured out to get a trim. My thoughts was distant, focused on an ocean, when I was startled by something hit the sidewalk. I glanced down to see a rock dove on its wings, spatchcocked, and convulsing.

The fall happened just as kids were emerging from the local primary school and so within moments a little crowd of little ones had assembled, surrounded by their mums and dads. This ring of bemused faces peered down at the pigeon, uncertain what to think or act. The kids were more decisive: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an emergency service?” I took off my jacket, knelt down and scooped the pigeon into it. “No problem, dear, the gentleman will look after her!” said one mum with a sigh of relief. I had turned into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, unintentionally, as I had a few days before.

I made my way home, arms held out, with the bird tucked safely inside the coat.

Unbeknownst to me that my impromptu decision to aid Belinda (the name I chose for my patient) would direct me to a community of city dwellers sacrificing significant amounts of effort to provide not only transport for feral pigeons but diagnostic imaging, respite care, and even “pigeon physio”.

I retrieved a cardboard box for Belinda, placed inside it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d open the box just long enough for us to share a momentary glance.

Those instances of mutual perplexity punctuated my frantic search for what to do after that. I contacted friends for guidance and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my astonishment, I found a bird rehabilitation group, and put in a request to join.

A Community Effort

With a large membership, the group operates on an anarchic method: someone in Manchester finds an ailing pigeon, a pleading post is created, then a comment section “assessment” takes place. If the bird is judged in need of an examination, someone with a vet link can get it one; if it needs therapy, a “rehabber” will volunteer to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own finely honed skills, whether it’s repairing broken wings or treating wounds. Their significant, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on kindness.

Belinda was promptly assessed with a neurological issue, likely a blow to the head, and placed with a rehabber who would administer medication and a program of gentle physio. We never found out exactly what made her to plummet. I assumed the role of bird taxi once more, taking the tram across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the care she deserved.

An Unexpected Lesson

After finding this secret pigeon “support system”, 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 claim anything comparable. 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 drop from the sky into the grounds of my secondary school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the courage to pick it up and take it to a safe place.

The individual has since died – one of several friends to die in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I understood that this had been a big part of what had made the return so difficult.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to raise the birds because they gave them company and an opportunity to stare at the open air between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the Depression, workers on the unemployment also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “idleness”.

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

The bird? Not this bird. Although not expected to ever take to the skies , she has taken to her newly earthbound life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each contented sound, often prompted by her favourite food, vegetables, feels like a lesson in perseverance and strength – and I am forever grateful to her for unveiling for me a new dimension to the city I thought I knew.