🔗 Share this article

The plane pushed through successive sheets of freezing rain during the approach into its destination. A sense of dread filled me during the journey, growing stronger as I made my way through the airport. I was unhappy about having to be the place where I had grown up, after making a home on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a few days, I ventured out to get a my hair cut. My attention was distant, back across an sea, when I was startled by something hit the sidewalk. I gazed down to see a bird on its side, sprawled, and convulsing.

The fall took place just as schoolchildren were streaming out from the local primary school and so within a short time a small chorus of youngsters had assembled, flanked by their mums and dads. This ring of bemused faces looked down at the pigeon, unsure what to think or act. The kids were more certain: “Daddy, she needs help, can we call an animal ambulance?” I slipped off my jacket, crouched down and gently lifted the pigeon inside it. “It’s okay, love, the nice man will look after her!” said one parent with a audible relief. I had turned into the ambulance for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, involuntarily, as I had a short time earlier.

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

Unbeknownst to me that my impromptu decision to medivac Belinda (the name I bestowed upon my new friend) would direct me to a community of city dwellers sacrificing significant amounts of time to provide not only transport for street birds but scans, respite care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I retrieved a shoebox for Belinda, lined it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to share a momentary glance.

Those instances of common perplexity interrupted my hectic search for what to do from there. I contacted friends for advice and one proposed trying social media, where, to my amazement, I stumbled upon a bird rehabilitation group, and sent a request to join.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group has an anarchic method: someone in Manchester discovers an ailing pigeon, a heartfelt post is published, then a comment section “evaluation” follows. If the bird is considered in need of an examination, someone with a connection to a clinic can arrange it; if it needs therapy, a “rehabber” will volunteer to care for the bird.

Carers each have their own finely honed skills, whether it’s repairing broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their momentous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by volunteerism.

Belinda was promptly assessed with a neurological issue, likely a concussion, and matched with a rehabber who would provide comfort and a regimen of patient physio. We never found out exactly what made her to plummet. I resumed the role of pigeon ambulance once more, taking the light rail across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the treatment she needed.

Rediscovering Home

After finding this secret pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much better about being back in my city. I question any of the places I had lived in while away could boast anything even close. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been part of a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one plummet from the sky into the playground of my secondary 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 a safe place.

The friend in question has since died – one of four friends to lose their lives in the years before my departure from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made coming back so painful.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a tradition as “emotional support” animals, especially in the certain regions. Laborers started to care for the birds because they gave them solace and an excuse to gaze up at the open air between long shifts of underground work. During the economic downturn, workers on the assistance also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “idleness”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as simple, diseased or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a animal doctor, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave it in the car park and we’ll end its life.”

It? Not her. Although not expected to ever soar , she has taken to her newly earthbound life with aplomb in a volunteer’s extra room. Each satisfied call, often elicited by her favourite food, frozen peas, feels like a lesson in adaptability and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for showing me a different facet to the city I was familiar with.