🔗 Share this article

The plane forced its way through successive sheets of freezing rain during the approach into the city. A sense of dread had accompanied me during the journey, only deepening as I walked through the terminal. I felt bitter over coming back to the town where I had spent my youth, after residing on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an eternity.

After a couple of days, I ventured out to get a haircut. My attention was far away, focused on an sea, when I was startled by something hit the sidewalk. I gazed down to see a pigeon on its side, sprawled, and twitching.

The fall happened just as kids were filing out from the local grade school and so within a short time a small chorus of little ones had formed, flanked by their mums and dads. This ring of bemused faces peered down at the pigeon, not knowing what to do or say. The kids were more certain: “Papa, she needs a vet, can we call an emergency service?” I took off my coat, bent down and gently lifted the pigeon up into it. “It’s okay, dear, the nice man will look after her!” exclaimed one parent with a sense of relief. I had become the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, against its will, as I had a short time earlier.

I made my way home, arms held out, with the bird nestled inside the jacket.

I had no idea that my impromptu decision to rescue my feathered charge (the name I gave my avian patient) would lead me to a community of local residents giving up significant amounts of effort to provide not only rescue services for feral pigeons but X-rays, respite care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I retrieved a small container for Belinda, placed inside it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those moments of common perplexity interrupted my desperate search for what to do from there. I called friends for advice and one recommended trying Facebook, where, to my astonishment, I stumbled upon a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and sent a request to join.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group has an decentralized model: someone in Manchester discovers an injured pigeon, a urgent post is published, then a comment section “assessment” follows. If the bird is considered in need of an X-ray, someone with a veterinary contact can organize it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabber” will volunteer to look after the bird.

Volunteers each have their own carefully cultivated skills, whether it’s setting broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their tremendous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by kindness.

Belinda was rapidly assessed with brain trauma, likely a concussion, and placed with a rehabber who would give pain relief and a regimen of gentle physio. We never found out exactly what caused her to drop from above. I took up the role of pigeon ambulance once more, taking the tram across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could receive the treatment she needed.

Rediscovering Home

After discovering this hidden pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my hometown. I doubt any of the places I had resided in while away could boast anything even close. 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 witnessed one drop from the sky into the playground of my old school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the gall to rescue it and take it to a safe place.

The individual has since passed away – one of a number of companions 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 hard.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a tradition as “companion” animals, especially in the certain regions. Miners started to raise the birds because they gave them company and an opportunity to stare at the heavens between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the hard times, workers on the dole also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “idleness”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as stupid, dirty or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a vet, who told me: “if you bring that here, leave it in the parking lot and we’ll euthanise it.”

It? Not our Belinda. Although not expected to ever soar , she has taken to her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each contented call, often elicited by her favourite food, peas, feels like a lesson in adaptability and strength – and I am forever grateful to her for showing me a new dimension to the city I thought I knew.