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T battled through wall after wall of sleet on its descent into the city. A sinking feeling filled me during the trip, only deepening as I shuffled through the terminal. I resented having to be the place where I had spent my youth, after residing 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 trim. My attention was miles away, focused on an sea, when I became aware of something strike the ground. I gazed down to see a bird on its wings, sprawled, and trembling.

The fall occurred just as schoolchildren were filing out from the local grade school and so within a short time a small chorus of youngsters had gathered, flanked by their mums and dads. This group of bemused faces peered down at the bird, not knowing what to think or act. The kids were more decisive: “Papa, she needs help, can we call an animal ambulance?” I took off my coat, crouched down and gently lifted the pigeon into it. “It’s okay, love, the gentleman will help her!” said one mother with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just come down hard, unintentionally, as I had a few days before.

I trudged home, arms stiffly extended, with the bird tucked safely inside the jacket.

I had no idea that my on-the-spot decision to medivac my feathered charge (the name I gave my avian patient) would direct me to a community of Mancunians giving up significant amounts of their time to provide not only rescue services for street birds but diagnostic imaging, respite care, and even “pigeon physio”.

I found a small container for Belinda, prepared it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to share a momentary glance.

Those moments of mutual bewilderment interrupted my hectic search for what to do next. I contacted friends for suggestions and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I discovered a local pigeon rescue group, and sent a request to participate.

A Grassroots Network

Over 3,000-strong, the group follows an decentralized method: someone in Manchester stumbles across an injured pigeon, a heartfelt post is made, then a comment section “assessment” takes place. If the bird is deemed in need of an examination, someone with a veterinary contact can get it one; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabber” will offer to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own highly developed specialities, whether it’s mending broken wings or dressing wounds. Their momentous, collective effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on volunteerism.

Belinda was quickly assessed with brain trauma, likely a head injury, and assigned to a rehabber who would give medication and a regimen of careful physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to plummet. I took up the role of avian courier once more, riding the tram across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could obtain the treatment she deserved.

An Unexpected Lesson

After stumbling across this underground pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my home town. I question any of the places I had called home while away could have anything even close. It also occurred to me that this was not the first time I’d been part of a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one plummet from the sky into the grounds of my old school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the courage to scoop it up and take it to safety.

The individual has since died – one of several friends to die in the years before my exit from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a big part of what had made returning home so hard.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “therapy” animals, especially in the north of England. Workers started to raise the birds because they gave them comfort and an reason to look up at the heavens between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the unemployment also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as simple, dirty or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a vet, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave that in the lot and we’ll put it down.”

It? Not our Belinda. Although not expected to ever take to the skies , she has taken to her newly land-based life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each happy call, often elicited by her favourite food, peas, feels like a example in perseverance and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for unveiling for me a different facet to the city I believed I understood.