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The plane pushed through successive sheets of sleet on its descent into its destination. A growing unease settled over me during the journey, intensifying as I made my way through the airport. I was unhappy about coming back to the place where I had been raised, 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 trim. My thoughts was far away, back across an ocean, when I heard something strike the ground. I looked down to see a bird on its side, sprawled, and trembling.

The impact occurred just as kids were filing out from the local grade school and so within a short time a little crowd of children had formed, flanked by their mums and dads. This ring of bemused faces looked down at the bird, not knowing what to say or do. The kids were more definitive: “Papa, she needs hospital, can we call an animal ambulance?” I slipped off my jacket, crouched down and gently lifted the pigeon up into it. “No problem, dear, the kind man will look after her!” said one mum with a sense of relief. I had turned into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, unintentionally, as I had a short time earlier.

I trudged home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird tucked safely inside the garment.

Little did I know that my on-the-spot decision to rescue the bird (the name I bestowed upon my patient) would guide me to a web of local residents sacrificing significant amounts of time to provide not only ambulances for street birds but diagnostic imaging, convalescence, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I located a cardboard box for Belinda, placed inside it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to share a momentary glance.

Those moments of shared bewilderment punctuated my desperate search for what to do from there. I called friends for guidance and one recommended trying social media, where, to my amazement, I discovered a local pigeon rescue group, and sent a request to join.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group has an anarchic model: someone in Manchester stumbles across an hurt pigeon, a pleading post is made, then a comment section “assessment” takes place. If the bird is deemed in need of an scan, someone with a veterinary contact can get it one; if it needs physio, a “rehabber” will volunteer to look after the bird.

Carers each have their own carefully cultivated expertise, whether it’s mending broken wings or dressing wounds. Their momentous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by volunteerism.

Belinda was promptly diagnosed with brain trauma, likely a blow to the head, and assigned to a rehabber who would give medication and a regimen of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what made her to fall from the sky. I assumed the role of avian courier once more, riding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could receive the treatment she required.

An Unexpected Lesson

After finding this secret pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my hometown. I am skeptical any of the places I had resided in while away could claim anything even close. It also occurred to me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one fall from the sky into the grounds of my secondary school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the gall to scoop it up and take it to a safe place.

The friend in question has since been lost – one of four friends to die in the years before my departure from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a major reason of what had made returning home so painful.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a tradition as “companion” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an opportunity to look up at the heavens between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the assistance also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “idleness”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as stupid, unclean or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a vet, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave it in the car park and we’ll end its life.”

That? Not our Belinda. Although unlikely to ever take to the skies , she has adapted to her newly earthbound life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each happy sound, often caused by her favourite treat, frozen peas, feels like a example in perseverance and strength – and I am always appreciative to her for revealing to me a new dimension to the city I believed I understood.