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T pushed through successive sheets of freezing rain during the approach into the city. A growing unease filled me during the trip, growing stronger as I shuffled through the airport. I was unhappy about having to be the city where I had grown up, after living on the other side of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a short while, I went out to get a trim. My attention was far away, back across an ocean, when I became aware of something strike the sidewalk. I gazed down to see a pigeon on its side, sprawled, and convulsing.

The fall happened just as kids were filing out from the local grade school and so within a short time a group of little ones had assembled, flanked by their mothers and fathers. This group of confused faces stared down at the bird, unsure what to say or do. The kids were more certain: “Dad, she needs help, can we call an animal ambulance?” I slipped off my jacket, knelt down and gently lifted the pigeon up into it. “It’s okay, sweet, the nice man will take care of her!” exclaimed one parent with a sense of relief. I had been transformed into the ambulance for this pigeon that had just come down hard, involuntarily, as I had a couple of days prior.

I walked slowly home, arms held out, with the bird curled up inside the garment.

Unbeknownst to me that my on-the-spot decision to aid Belinda (the name I bestowed upon my patient) would direct me to a network of city dwellers giving up significant amounts of time to provide not only ambulances for street birds but diagnostic imaging, recovery care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I found a cardboard box 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 mutual confusion interrupted my hectic search for what to do from there. I contacted friends for guidance and one proposed trying Facebook, where, to my astonishment, I discovered a local pigeon rescue group, and sent a request to join.

A Community Effort

Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an decentralized method: someone in Manchester stumbles across an hurt pigeon, a pleading post is made, then a comment section “assessment” follows. If the bird is judged in need of an scan, someone with a vet link can get it one; if it needs therapy, a “carer” will step forward to foster the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own finely honed expertise, whether it’s mending broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their significant, collective effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on volunteerism.

Belinda was rapidly assessed with neurological problems, likely a blow to the head, and assigned to a rehabber who would give medication and a regimen of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what made her to fall from the sky. I took up the role of avian courier once more, taking the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the treatment she required.

Rediscovering Home

After finding this hidden pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my home town. I question any of the places I had resided in while away could have anything comparable. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been part of a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one plummet from the sky into the schoolyard of my secondary school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the courage to pick it up and take it to security.

The friend in question has since been lost – one of a number of companions to lose their lives in the years before my departure from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a big part of what had made returning home so difficult.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “therapy” animals, especially in the certain regions. Workers started to care for the birds because they gave them company and an reason to stare at the sky between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the assistance also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “social malaise”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as stupid, diseased or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring that here, leave it in the lot and we’ll euthanise it.”

It? Not her. Although improbable to ever take to the skies , 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 treat, peas, feels like a lesson in adaptability and resilience – and I am eternally thankful to her for unveiling for me another side to the city I believed I understood.