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The plane forced its way through wall after wall of freezing rain during the approach into Manchester. A sinking feeling had accompanied me during the flight, only deepening as I walked through the arrivals hall. I felt bitter over coming back to the place where I had been raised, after residing on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a few days, I headed out to get a my hair cut. My thoughts was miles away, focused on an sea, when I was startled by something strike the ground. I looked down to see a bird on its side, sprawled, and trembling.

The impact happened just as children were streaming out from the local primary school and so within minutes a little crowd of youngsters had formed, accompanied by their mothers and fathers. This group of bemused faces looked down at the bird, not knowing what to do or say. The kids were more definitive: “Dad, she needs help, can we call an emergency service?” I slipped off my anorak, knelt down and gently lifted the pigeon into it. “Don’t worry, dear, the gentleman will take care of her!” remarked one mother with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just come down hard, against its will, as I had a couple of days prior.

I trudged home, arms held out, with the bird nestled inside the jacket.

I had no idea that my impromptu decision to medivac my feathered charge (the name I bestowed upon my patient) would guide me to a network of Mancunians devoting significant amounts of time to provide not only ambulances for city pigeons but diagnostic imaging, respite care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I retrieved a small container for Belinda, placed inside it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those periods of common confusion marked my desperate search for what to do next. I called friends for advice and one recommended trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I discovered a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to join.

A Grassroots Network

Boasting thousands of members, the group operates on an organic method: someone in Manchester discovers an hurt pigeon, a heartfelt post is published, then a comment section “assessment” takes place. If the bird is judged in need of an X-ray, someone with a connection to a clinic can arrange it; if it needs therapy, a “rehabber” will offer to look after the bird.

Volunteers each have their own finely honed skills, whether it’s mending broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their momentous, collective effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on goodwill.

Belinda was promptly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a head injury, and matched with a rehabber who would administer medication and a course of patient physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to plummet. I resumed the role of avian courier once more, boarding the tram across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the attention she needed.

A New Perspective

After discovering this hidden pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my home town. I doubt any of the places I had called home while away could claim anything remotely similar. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been part of a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one drop from the sky into the playground of my high school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the nerve to rescue it and take it to a safe place.

The individual has since passed away – one of several friends to die in the years before my departure from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a major reason of what had made the return so painful.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a tradition as “therapy” animals, especially in the North. Miners started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an opportunity to stare at the open air between long shifts of darkness below. During the hard times, workers on the unemployment also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “social malaise”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as stupid, dirty or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave it in the car park and we’ll end its life.”

The bird? Not her. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has adapted to her newly earthbound life with grace in a volunteer’s extra room. Each contented coo, often elicited by her favourite snack, frozen peas, feels like a lesson in adaptability and strength – and I am forever grateful to her for revealing to me a new dimension to the city I was familiar with.