🔗 Share this article

The plane forced its way through wall after wall of freezing rain during the approach into Manchester. A growing unease filled me during the trip, intensifying as I made my way through the airport. I felt bitter over having to be the town where I had been raised, after making a home on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a short while, I ventured out to get a haircut. My mind was miles away, back across an sea, when I became aware of something smack into the pavement. I looked down to see a pigeon on its wings, spatchcocked, and twitching.

The impact took place just as schoolchildren were emerging from the local elementary school and so within a short time a small chorus of little ones had formed, surrounded by their parents. This group of confused faces looked down at the pigeon, not knowing what to think or act. The kids were more decisive: “Papa, she needs hospital, can we call an emergency service?” I removed my coat, bent down and scooped the pigeon up into it. “It’s okay, sweet, the kind man will take care of her!” said one mum with a sense of relief. I had turned into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just come down hard, involuntarily, as I had a short time earlier.

I trudged home, arms stiffly extended, with the bird nestled inside the jacket.

I had no idea that my on-the-spot decision to rescue Belinda (the name I chose for my avian patient) would guide me to a web of city dwellers sacrificing significant amounts of effort to provide not only ambulances for street birds but X-rays, convalescence, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I retrieved a shoebox for Belinda, lined it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those moments of mutual bewilderment marked my hectic search for what to do next. I contacted friends for guidance and one recommended trying online groups, where, to my amazement, I discovered a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to become a member.

A Grassroots Network

Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an anarchic model: someone in Manchester stumbles across an ailing pigeon, a urgent post is made, then a comment section “triage” ensues. If the bird is considered in need of an X-ray, someone with a vet link can organize it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “carer” will offer to foster the bird.

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

Belinda was promptly diagnosed with a neurological issue, likely a blow to the head, and matched with a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a course of careful physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to plummet. I resumed the role of bird taxi once more, boarding the tram across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the treatment she required.

Rediscovering Home

After discovering this underground pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my hometown. I question any of the places I had resided in while away could claim anything comparable. It also dawned on me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one fall from the sky into the schoolyard of my old school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the gall to scoop it up and take it to security.

The individual has since been lost – one of four friends to die in the years before my exit from Manchester. I realised that this had been a big part of what had made coming back so hard.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “therapy” animals, especially in the certain regions. Miners started to care for the birds because they gave them solace and an excuse to gaze up at the open air between long shifts of darkness below. During the hard times, workers on the dole also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as stupid, unclean or a pest. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a animal doctor, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave that in the parking lot and we’ll end its life.”

The bird? Not this bird. Although unlikely to ever fly again , she has taken to her newly earthbound life with success in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each contented call, often caused by her favourite snack, vegetables, feels like a lesson in perseverance and fortitude – and I am forever grateful to her for unveiling for me a different facet to the city I thought I knew.