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T forced its way through wall after wall of icy precipitation as it landed into its destination. A growing unease settled over me during the flight, intensifying as I shuffled through the arrivals hall. I resented returning to the town where I had spent my youth, after making a home on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a couple of days, I headed out to get a my hair cut. My attention was distant, lingering over an ocean, when I heard something smack into the ground. I glanced down to see a rock dove on its wings, splayed out, and twitching.

The crash took place just as kids were emerging from the local grade school and so within minutes a group of little ones had assembled, surrounded by their mothers and fathers. This group of bemused faces peered down at the bird, uncertain what to think or act. The kids were more certain: “Daddy, she needs help, can we call an ambulance?” I took off my anorak, crouched down and gently lifted the pigeon up into it. “Don’t worry, love, the kind man will look after her!” remarked one parent with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the ambulance for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, unintentionally, as I had a short time earlier.

I trudged home, arms stiffly extended, with the bird curled up inside the jacket.

Little did I know that my impromptu decision to aid my feathered charge (the name I bestowed upon my new friend) would lead me to a community of Mancunians giving up significant amounts of effort to provide not only ambulances for street birds but diagnostic imaging, convalescence, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I located a cardboard box for Belinda, prepared it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those periods of common confusion interrupted my frantic search for what to do next. I called friends for advice and one suggested trying social media, where, to my surprise, I found a local pigeon rescue group, and put in a request to participate.

A Grassroots Network

With a large membership, the group follows an organic system: someone in Manchester finds an ailing pigeon, a heartfelt post is made, then a comment section “assessment” follows. 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 “rehabber” will volunteer to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own carefully cultivated specialities, whether it’s mending broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their momentous, collective effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by kindness.

Belinda was rapidly assessed with neurological problems, likely a concussion, and assigned to a rehabber who would give comfort and a course of patient physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to drop from above. I assumed the role of pigeon ambulance once more, taking the streetcar 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 better about being back in my hometown. I doubt any of the places I had called home while away could boast anything remotely similar. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one drop from the sky into the grounds of my high school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the gall to pick it up and take it to a safe place.

The aforementioned friend has since been lost – one of a number of companions to pass away in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a major reason of what had made coming back so painful.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the certain regions. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them company and an excuse to stare at the heavens between long shifts of darkness below. During the economic downturn, workers on the unemployment also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “social malaise”.

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

It? Not her. Although not expected to ever soar , she has adapted to her newly earthbound life with aplomb in a volunteer’s home. Each happy sound, often prompted by her favourite treat, peas, feels like a lesson in perseverance and strength – and I am eternally thankful to her for showing me a different facet to the city I thought I knew.