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The plane forced its way through successive sheets of icy precipitation during the approach into its destination. A sinking feeling settled over me during the flight, only deepening as I made my way through the airport. I resented returning to the place where I had spent my youth, after residing on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a few days, I ventured out to get a my hair cut. My attention was far away, focused on an ocean, when I was startled by something hit the sidewalk. I glanced down to see a pigeon on its back, spatchcocked, and convulsing.

The impact happened just as kids were filing out from the local elementary school and so within a short time a group of children had assembled, surrounded by their parents. This circle of bemused faces looked down at the creature, uncertain what to say or do. The kids were more decisive: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an animal ambulance?” I removed my jacket, crouched down and scooped the pigeon up into it. “No problem, dear, the gentleman will help her!” remarked one parent with a audible relief. I had turned into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, involuntarily, as I had a short time earlier.

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

Little did I know that my spontaneous decision to rescue the bird (the name I chose for my patient) would lead me to a network of local residents devoting significant amounts of effort to provide not only rescue services for street birds but diagnostic imaging, recovery care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I found a shoebox for Belinda, prepared it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those periods of common bewilderment interrupted my hectic search for what to do from there. I phoned friends for guidance and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I found a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and submitted a request to join.

An Anarchic Model

Over 3,000-strong, the group has an organic method: someone in Manchester stumbles across an ailing pigeon, a urgent post is made, then a comment section “triage” takes place. If the bird is judged in need of an scan, someone with a vet link can arrange it; if it needs physio, a “carer” will volunteer to look after the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own highly developed specialities, whether it’s mending broken wings or dressing wounds. Their tremendous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on kindness.

Belinda was promptly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a concussion, and matched with a rehabber who would provide medication and a course of gentle physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to plummet. I took up the role of avian courier 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.

A New Perspective

After finding this underground pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much better about being back in my home town. I am skeptical any of the places I had called home while away could claim anything remotely similar. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one plummet from the sky into the playground of my high school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the nerve to rescue it and take it to security.

The friend in question has since died – one of several friends to die in the years before my departure from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a big part of what had made returning home so difficult.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a tradition as “therapy” animals, especially in the north of England. Workers started to care for the birds because they gave them solace and an excuse to stare at the open air between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the hard times, workers on the assistance also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “social malaise”.

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

It? Not our Belinda. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has taken to her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s extra room. Each happy call, often caused by her favourite snack, peas, feels like a demonstration in perseverance and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for showing me a new dimension to the city I thought I knew.