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T pushed through successive sheets of freezing rain on its descent into the city. A growing unease settled over me during the flight, growing stronger as I made my way through the terminal. I was unhappy about coming back to the city where I had grown up, after residing on the other side of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a few days, I went out to get a haircut. My mind was far away, focused on an sea, when I became aware of something smack into the pavement. I gazed down to see a bird on its side, splayed out, and trembling.

The crash occurred just as children were filing out from the local elementary school and so within a short time a little crowd of children had gathered, accompanied by their mothers and fathers. This circle of puzzled faces peered down at the pigeon, not knowing what to think or act. The kids were more decisive: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an emergency service?” I removed my coat, bent down and gently lifted the pigeon into it. “No problem, love, the nice man will take care of her!” remarked one parent with a sense of relief. I had become the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, unintentionally, as I had a short time earlier.

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

Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to rescue my feathered charge (the name I bestowed upon my avian patient) would lead me to a network of local residents sacrificing significant amounts of their time to provide not only transport for street birds but X-rays, recovery care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I found a shoebox for Belinda, prepared it with an old T-shirt, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those instances of mutual confusion marked my desperate search for what to do from there. I phoned friends for advice and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my amazement, I stumbled upon a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and put in a request to participate.

A Community Effort

Over 3,000-strong, the group has an decentralized model: someone in Manchester discovers an ailing pigeon, a pleading post is made, then a comment section “evaluation” takes place. If the bird is considered in need of an X-ray, someone with a vet link can organize it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabilitator” will volunteer to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own carefully cultivated specialities, whether it’s repairing broken wings or dressing wounds. Their significant, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on goodwill.

Belinda was promptly diagnosed with a neurological issue, likely a blow to the head, and placed with a rehabber who would give medication and a course of gentle physio. We never found out exactly what made her to plummet. I assumed the role of bird taxi once more, riding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could get the attention she required.

Rediscovering Home

After stumbling across this secret pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much better about being back in my hometown. I doubt any of the places I had called home while away could boast anything comparable. It also dawned on me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one fall from the sky into the schoolyard of my secondary school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the nerve to pick it up and take it to safety.

The aforementioned friend has since passed away – one of several friends to lose their lives in the years before my departure from Manchester. I realised that this had been a big part of what had made coming back so hard.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a history as “therapy” animals, especially in the North. Miners started to keep the birds because they gave them company and an excuse to look up at the sky between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the dole also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

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

It? Not this bird. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has adapted to her newly earthbound life with grace in a volunteer’s home. Each satisfied sound, often elicited by her favourite treat, vegetables, feels like a demonstration in resilience and resilience – and I am forever grateful to her for unveiling for me another side to the city I was familiar with.