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The plane battled through wall after wall of icy precipitation during the approach into its destination. A sense of dread settled over me during the journey, intensifying as I made my way through the terminal. I resented having to be the place where I had spent my youth, after making a home on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a short while, I headed out to get a my hair cut. My mind was far away, back across an ocean, when I was startled by something smack into the ground. I glanced down to see a pigeon on its back, splayed out, and convulsing.

The crash occurred just as children were filing out from the local primary school and so within a short time a group of children had assembled, flanked by their mums and dads. This group of bemused faces stared down at the creature, not knowing what to say or do. The kids were more decisive: “Dad, she needs help, can we call an emergency service?” I took off my coat, bent down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “No problem, sweet, the nice man will take care of her!” exclaimed one mother with a audible relief. I had turned into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, unintentionally, as I had a couple of days prior.

I walked slowly home, arms held out, with the bird nestled inside the coat.

I had no idea that my on-the-spot decision to rescue Belinda (the name I bestowed upon my new friend) would lead me to a community of city dwellers giving up significant amounts of their time to provide not only ambulances for city pigeons but scans, recovery care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I retrieved a cardboard box for Belinda, placed inside it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those periods of shared perplexity interrupted my hectic search for what to do next. I phoned friends for advice and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my astonishment, I found a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and sent a request to join.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group operates on an anarchic model: someone in Manchester finds an injured pigeon, a pleading post is created, then a comment section “evaluation” ensues. If the bird is considered in need of an X-ray, someone with a veterinary contact can organize it; if it needs physio, a “rehabber” will offer to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own highly developed expertise, whether it’s mending broken wings or treating wounds. Their tremendous, collective effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on kindness.

Belinda was promptly diagnosed with a neurological issue, likely a blow to the head, and placed with a rehabber who would give comfort and a course of careful physio. We never found out exactly what made her to fall from the sky. I took up the role of avian courier once more, boarding the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could obtain the attention she required.

An Unexpected Lesson

After stumbling across this secret pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much better about being back in my city. I question any of the places I had called home while away could have anything remotely similar. It also occurred to 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 playground of my old school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the gall to scoop it up and take it to security.

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

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “companion” animals, especially in the north of England. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them company and an excuse to stare at the sky between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the Depression, workers on the dole also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “social malaise”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as unintelligent, dirty or a pest. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a animal doctor, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave it in the car park and we’ll end its life.”

It? Not this bird. Although unlikely to ever soar , she has adapted to her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each satisfied sound, often prompted by her favourite snack, peas, feels like a demonstration in perseverance and resilience – and I am always appreciative to her for unveiling for me another side to the city I believed I understood.