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Our aircraft forced its way through successive sheets of icy precipitation during the approach into Manchester. A sinking feeling settled over me during the trip, intensifying as I shuffled through the terminal. I was unhappy about 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 couple of days, I went out to get a haircut. My attention was distant, lingering over an ocean, when I was startled by something strike the pavement. I gazed down to see a rock dove on its back, splayed out, and trembling.

The crash happened just as schoolchildren were filing out from the local elementary school and so within moments a small chorus of little ones had formed, surrounded by their mothers and fathers. This ring of puzzled faces looked down at the pigeon, unsure what to say or do. The kids were more certain: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an emergency service?” I took off my coat, crouched down and gently lifted the pigeon up into it. “It’s okay, dear, the kind man will look after her!” exclaimed one mum with a audible relief. I had been transformed into the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, involuntarily, as I had a few days before.

I made my way home, arms held out, with the bird tucked safely inside the jacket.

Little did I know that my spontaneous decision to aid the bird (the name I chose for my new friend) would lead me to a community of city dwellers giving up significant amounts of time to provide not only transport for city pigeons but diagnostic imaging, respite care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I located a shoebox 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 share a momentary glance.

Those periods of mutual bewilderment punctuated my desperate search for what to do next. I contacted friends for suggestions and one proposed trying social media, where, to my amazement, I stumbled upon a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and submitted a request to participate.

A Community Effort

With a large membership, the group follows an decentralized method: someone in Manchester finds an ailing pigeon, a urgent post is published, then a comment section “assessment” takes place. If the bird is considered in need of an X-ray, someone with a veterinary contact can get it one; if it needs physio, a “rehabber” will volunteer to look after the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own highly developed specialities, whether it’s setting broken wings or treating wounds. Their momentous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on kindness.

Belinda was promptly diagnosed with a neurological issue, likely a concussion, and assigned to a rehabber who would give medication and a program of gentle physio. We never discovered exactly what made her to fall from the sky. I took up the role of avian courier once more, boarding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could get the attention she needed.

Rediscovering Home

After discovering 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 have anything comparable. 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 drop from the sky into the schoolyard of my old school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the gall to rescue it and take it to security.

The aforementioned friend has since died – one of a number of companions to lose their lives in the years before my departure from Manchester. I understood that this had been a big part of what had made returning home so painful.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a history as “companion” animals, especially in the certain regions. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an reason to stare at the open air between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the dole also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “social malaise”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as unintelligent, diseased or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a vet, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave it in the parking lot and we’ll euthanise it.”

It? Not her. Although improbable to ever fly again , she has embraced her newly earthbound life with grace in a volunteer’s home. Each contented coo, often prompted by her favourite food, peas, feels like a demonstration in adaptability and strength – and I am eternally thankful to her for showing me a different facet to the city I believed I understood.