🔗 Share this article

Our aircraft pushed through layer after layer of freezing rain during the approach into its destination. A sense of dread settled over me during the journey, growing stronger as I made my way through the arrivals hall. I resented returning to the town where I had grown up, after living on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a couple of days, I headed out to get a haircut. My thoughts was distant, lingering over an sea, when I heard something hit the sidewalk. I looked down to see a rock dove on its side, splayed out, and twitching.

The impact happened just as schoolchildren were streaming out from the local grade school and so within minutes a small chorus of youngsters had assembled, accompanied by their parents. This ring of puzzled faces looked down at the bird, unsure what to think or act. The kids were more definitive: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an ambulance?” I took off my jacket, knelt down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “It’s okay, sweet, the kind man will help her!” exclaimed one parent with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, unintentionally, as I had a short time earlier.

I made my way home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird tucked safely inside the coat.

Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to medivac the bird (the name I chose for my avian patient) would lead me to a community of local residents sacrificing significant amounts of time to provide not only rescue services for street birds but scans, recovery care, and even “pigeon physio”.

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

Those instances of mutual confusion punctuated my frantic search for what to do next. I phoned friends for advice and one proposed trying online groups, where, to my surprise, I discovered a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to participate.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an decentralized system: someone in Manchester finds an injured pigeon, a heartfelt post is published, then a comment section “evaluation” takes place. If the bird is considered in need of an X-ray, someone with a veterinary contact can organize it; if it needs therapy, a “rehabber” will step forward to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own highly developed skills, whether it’s setting broken wings or treating wounds. Their momentous, collective effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on volunteerism.

Belinda was promptly assessed with brain trauma, likely a concussion, and placed with a rehabber who would provide comfort and a program of patient physio. We never learned exactly what made her to fall from the sky. I assumed the role of pigeon ambulance once more, boarding the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could obtain the attention she required.

Rediscovering Home

After finding this underground pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my home town. I doubt any of the places I had lived in while away could have anything comparable. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one plummet 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 gall to scoop it up and take it to security.

The friend in question has since been lost – one of four friends to lose their lives in the years before my exit from Manchester. I realised that this had been a significant factor of what had made coming back so hard.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the North. Laborers started to care for the birds because they gave them comfort and an reason to look up at the heavens between long shifts of darkness below. During the economic downturn, workers on the assistance also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “idleness”.

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

It? Not her. Although unlikely to ever fly again , she has taken to her newly grounded life with success in a volunteer’s home. Each satisfied sound, often caused by her favourite treat, peas, feels like a demonstration in perseverance and resilience – and I am eternally thankful to her for unveiling for me a new dimension to the city I was familiar with.