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T pushed through successive sheets of sleet during the approach into its destination. A sinking feeling settled over me during the trip, only deepening as I walked through the arrivals hall. I was unhappy about coming back to the town where I had grown up, after residing on the far side of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a few days, I headed out to get a my hair cut. My attention was far away, back across an vast expanse of water, when I heard something strike the ground. I looked down to see a pigeon on its side, splayed out, and trembling.

The fall happened just as kids were filing out from the local grade school and so within moments a small chorus of little ones had formed, flanked by their parents. This ring of confused faces peered down at the creature, unsure what to say or do. The kids were more decisive: “Dad, she needs a vet, can we call an animal ambulance?” I removed my coat, crouched down and scooped the pigeon up into it. “Don’t worry, sweet, the gentleman will look after her!” exclaimed one mother with a sense of relief. I had turned into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, involuntarily, as I had a couple of days prior.

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

Unbeknownst to me that my impromptu decision to aid the bird (the name I bestowed upon my new friend) would guide me to a web of local residents devoting significant amounts of their time to provide not only ambulances for feral pigeons but diagnostic imaging, recovery care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I retrieved a small container for Belinda, placed inside it with an old T-shirt, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those periods of common bewilderment interrupted my hectic search for what to do after that. I called friends for guidance and one proposed trying social media, where, to my astonishment, I discovered a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and sent a request to join.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group operates on an anarchic model: someone in Manchester finds an hurt pigeon, a urgent post is published, then a comment section “triage” ensues. If the bird is deemed in need of an scan, someone with a veterinary contact can arrange it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “carer” will offer to look after the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own finely honed specialities, whether it’s mending broken wings or treating wounds. Their significant, combined effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on goodwill.

Belinda was quickly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a head injury, and placed with a rehabber who would give medication and a course of patient physio. We never found out exactly what made her to drop from above. I took up the role of avian courier once more, boarding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the treatment she needed.

A New Perspective

After finding this underground pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my hometown. I question any of the places I had resided in while away could have anything even close. 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 observed one drop from the sky into the schoolyard of my high school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the nerve to scoop it up and take it to safety.

The aforementioned friend has since passed away – one of a number of companions to lose their lives in the years before my exit from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made returning home so painful.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a history as “therapy” 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 open air between long shifts of underground work. During the hard times, workers on the assistance also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “social malaise”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as unintelligent, unclean or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a animal doctor, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave it in the lot and we’ll end its life.”

That? Not our Belinda. Although unlikely to ever take to the skies , she has taken to her newly land-based life with aplomb in a volunteer’s extra room. Each contented call, often elicited by her favourite food, vegetables, feels like a demonstration in perseverance and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for revealing to me a different facet to the city I was familiar with.