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T pushed through successive sheets of icy precipitation during the approach into Manchester. A sense of dread settled over me during the journey, intensifying as I shuffled through the terminal. I was unhappy about having to be the place where I had spent my youth, after making a home on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a few days, I went out to get a haircut. My mind was miles away, focused on an sea, when I became aware of something hit the pavement. I looked down to see a bird on its back, spatchcocked, and twitching.

The impact occurred just as children were streaming out from the local primary school and so within moments a small chorus of children 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 a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I removed my anorak, bent down and scooped the pigeon inside it. “Don’t worry, love, the gentleman will look after her!” said one mum with a audible relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just come down hard, against its will, as I had a few days before.

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

Little did I know that my spontaneous decision to medivac the bird (the name I bestowed upon my avian patient) would lead me to a community of local residents giving up significant amounts of their time to provide not only ambulances for city pigeons but scans, recovery care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I located a shoebox for Belinda, placed inside it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those instances of shared bewilderment punctuated my hectic search for what to do after that. I called friends for suggestions and one proposed trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I discovered a bird rehabilitation group, and sent a request to become a member.

A Grassroots Network

Over 3,000-strong, the group follows an decentralized method: someone in Manchester finds an hurt pigeon, a pleading post is created, then a comment section “assessment” ensues. If the bird is judged in need of an X-ray, someone with a vet link can arrange it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “carer” will offer to care for the bird.

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

Belinda was promptly assessed with brain trauma, likely a concussion, and assigned to a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a regimen of gentle physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to drop from above. I assumed 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 receive the treatment she required.

A New Perspective

After stumbling across this hidden pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much better about being back in my city. I doubt any of the places I had called home while away could boast anything comparable. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one plummet from the sky into the grounds of my high 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 safety.

The individual has since passed away – one of a number of companions to die in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made returning home so hard.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the certain regions. Miners started to raise the birds because they gave them company and an excuse to look up at the heavens between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the hard times, workers on the dole also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “social malaise”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as unintelligent, unclean or a pest. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a vet, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave that in the lot and we’ll put it down.”

The bird? Not this bird. Although improbable to ever soar , she has adapted to her newly land-based life with grace in a volunteer’s extra room. Each contented coo, often elicited by her favourite food, frozen peas, feels like a demonstration in resilience and fortitude – and I am eternally thankful to her for revealing to me a different facet to the city I was familiar with.