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T battled through successive sheets of sleet on its descent into Manchester. A sinking feeling had accompanied me during the flight, only deepening as I walked through the airport. I resented having to be the city where I had been raised, after residing on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a few days, I headed out to get a haircut. My attention was far away, back across an sea, when I heard something hit the sidewalk. I gazed down to see a bird on its side, splayed out, and trembling.

The impact occurred just as schoolchildren were emerging from the local elementary school and so within moments a little crowd of youngsters had gathered, flanked by their mothers and fathers. This group of puzzled faces peered down at the pigeon, unsure what to say or do. The kids were more definitive: “Dad, she needs help, can we call an ambulance?” I removed my anorak, crouched down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “Don’t worry, dear, the gentleman will take care of her!” said one parent with a sigh of relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just come down hard, unintentionally, as I had a short time earlier.

I trudged home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird nestled inside the jacket.

Unbeknownst to me that my on-the-spot decision to medivac my feathered charge (the name I bestowed upon my new friend) would guide me to a network of Mancunians sacrificing significant amounts of time to provide not only rescue services for street birds but scans, convalescence, and even “pigeon physio”.

I retrieved a cardboard box for Belinda, placed inside it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those instances of mutual perplexity punctuated my frantic search for what to do from there. I contacted friends for suggestions and one recommended trying online groups, where, to my astonishment, I discovered a bird rehabilitation group, and put in a request to join.

A Community Effort

Over 3,000-strong, the group operates on an anarchic method: someone in Manchester finds an injured pigeon, a pleading post is made, then a comment section “triage” ensues. If the bird is deemed in need of an examination, someone with a veterinary contact can get it one; if it needs therapy, a “rehabber” will volunteer to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own highly developed expertise, whether it’s setting broken wings or dressing wounds. Their tremendous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on kindness.

Belinda was promptly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a concussion, and assigned to a rehabber who would give medication and a regimen of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to drop from above. I resumed the role of bird taxi once more, riding the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could receive the care she needed.

An Unexpected Lesson

After discovering this secret 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 resided in while away could have anything remotely similar. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one fall from the sky into the grounds of my high school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the nerve to scoop it up and take it to security.

The aforementioned friend has since been lost – one of several friends to lose their lives in the years before my departure from Manchester. I realised that this had been a significant factor of what had made the return so difficult.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a history as “therapy” animals, especially in the certain regions. Workers started to care for the birds because they gave them company and an opportunity to gaze up at the open air between long shifts of darkness below. During the economic downturn, workers on the unemployment also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “despair”.

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

That? Not her. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has adapted to her newly land-based life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each satisfied sound, often elicited by her favourite food, vegetables, feels like a lesson in perseverance and strength – and I am eternally thankful to her for revealing to me another side to the city I was familiar with.