🔗 Share this article

T pushed through layer after layer of freezing rain on its descent into its destination. A sense of dread filled me during the flight, intensifying as I made my way through the arrivals hall. I resented having to be the place where I had been raised, after living on the far side of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a couple of days, I headed out to get a haircut. My mind was miles away, lingering over an sea, when I was startled by something strike the sidewalk. I gazed down to see a rock dove on its side, spatchcocked, and convulsing.

The impact took place just as kids were emerging from the local primary school and so within moments a group of youngsters had gathered, accompanied by their mothers and fathers. This circle of puzzled faces peered down at the bird, unsure what to say or do. The kids were more definitive: “Dad, she needs a vet, can we call an emergency service?” I slipped off my jacket, knelt down and scooped the pigeon into it. “No problem, love, the gentleman will look after her!” said one parent with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just come down hard, involuntarily, as I had a short time earlier.

I trudged home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird curled up inside the garment.

Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to aid Belinda (the name I bestowed upon my avian patient) would lead me to a web of Mancunians devoting significant amounts of their time to provide not only ambulances for street birds but diagnostic imaging, convalescence, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I retrieved a small container for Belinda, placed inside it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those moments of shared perplexity interrupted my hectic search for what to do next. I called friends for advice and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I stumbled upon a bird rehabilitation group, and sent a request to participate.

A Community Effort

Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an organic model: someone in Manchester stumbles across an ailing pigeon, a heartfelt post is made, then a comment section “assessment” ensues. If the bird is considered in need of an scan, someone with a connection to a clinic can get it one; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabilitator” will offer to foster the bird.

Carers each have their own highly developed skills, whether it’s setting broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their significant, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on goodwill.

Belinda was promptly assessed with neurological problems, likely a head injury, and matched with a rehabber who would give comfort and a program of gentle physio. We never discovered exactly what made her to fall from the sky. I assumed the role of avian courier once more, riding the tram across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could get the care she needed.

An Unexpected Lesson

After discovering this underground pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much differently 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 dawned on 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 old school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the gall to rescue it and take it to a safe place.

The aforementioned friend has since passed away – one of a number of companions to lose their lives in the years before my departure from Manchester. I realised that this had been a significant factor of what had made the return so hard.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “companion” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to raise the birds because they gave them company and an excuse to look up at the sky between long shifts of underground work. During the Depression, workers on the dole also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

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

That? Not her. Although improbable to ever soar , she has taken to her newly earthbound life with aplomb in a volunteer’s home. Each contented call, often prompted by her favourite snack, vegetables, feels like a lesson in resilience and fortitude – and I am forever grateful to her for revealing to me a new dimension to the city I believed I understood.