🔗 Share this article

The plane pushed through wall after wall of icy precipitation on its descent into Manchester. A growing unease settled over me during the trip, intensifying as I shuffled through the airport. I was unhappy about coming back to the town where I had been raised, after making a home on the far side of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a short while, I went out to get a trim. My thoughts was miles away, focused on an sea, when I became aware of something smack into the pavement. I looked down to see a bird on its back, sprawled, and convulsing.

The impact occurred just as kids were streaming out from the local grade school and so within minutes a group of little ones had formed, accompanied by their mothers and fathers. This group of puzzled faces looked down at the creature, not knowing what to do or say. The kids were more decisive: “Dad, she needs a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I took off my coat, crouched down and gently lifted the pigeon into it. “Don’t worry, dear, the nice man will help her!” remarked one mum with a audible relief. I had become the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just come down hard, unintentionally, as I had a couple of days prior.

I walked slowly home, arms stiffly extended, with the bird nestled inside the garment.

Unbeknownst to me that my on-the-spot decision to medivac the bird (the name I bestowed upon my new friend) would direct me to a web of city dwellers devoting significant amounts of time to provide not only rescue services for street birds but scans, respite care, and even “pigeon physio”.

I found a shoebox for Belinda, placed inside it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to share a momentary glance.

Those periods of shared bewilderment marked my hectic search for what to do next. I called friends for guidance and one proposed trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I discovered a bird rehabilitation group, and put in a request to join.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an decentralized model: someone in Manchester finds an hurt pigeon, a urgent post is published, then a comment section “assessment” ensues. If the bird is considered in need of an examination, someone with a connection to a clinic can arrange it; if it needs physio, a “rehabilitator” will volunteer to foster the bird.

Carers each have their own finely honed specialities, whether it’s mending broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their momentous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on volunteerism.

Belinda was promptly assessed with neurological problems, likely a head injury, and assigned to a rehabber who would give medication and a program of gentle physio. We never discovered exactly what made her to drop from above. I resumed the role of avian courier once more, riding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could get the care she needed.

A New Perspective

After discovering this hidden pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much better about being back in my hometown. I am skeptical any of the places I had lived in while away could have anything even close. It also dawned on me that this was not the first time I’d been part of a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one plummet from the sky into the schoolyard of my high school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the nerve to scoop it up and take it to safety.

The individual has since been lost – one of several friends to lose their lives in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I realised that this had been a major reason of what had made returning home so difficult.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a tradition as “emotional support” animals, especially in the north of England. Workers started to raise the birds because they gave them company and an reason to gaze up at the sky between long shifts of darkness below. During the economic downturn, workers on the dole also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “social malaise”.

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

That? Not our Belinda. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has embraced her newly grounded life with success in a volunteer’s extra room. Each contented sound, often elicited by her favourite snack, peas, feels like a lesson in perseverance and fortitude – and I am forever grateful to her for unveiling for me another side to the city I believed I understood.