🔗 Share this article

T battled through layer after layer of icy precipitation as it landed into Manchester. A sinking feeling settled over me during the trip, only deepening as I shuffled through the arrivals hall. I resented returning to the town where I had grown up, after living on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a few days, I ventured out to get a trim. My thoughts was miles away, back across an vast expanse of water, when I was startled by something hit the sidewalk. I looked down to see a rock dove on its wings, spatchcocked, and twitching.

The fall occurred just as children were filing out from the local grade school and so within moments a group of youngsters had assembled, accompanied by their mothers and fathers. This group of puzzled faces looked down at the pigeon, unsure what to do or say. The kids were more decisive: “Daddy, she needs a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I removed my anorak, crouched down and scooped the pigeon into it. “No problem, dear, the nice man will help her!” exclaimed one parent with a sense of relief. I had turned into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, unintentionally, as I had a few days before.

I trudged home, arms held out, with the bird curled up inside the coat.

Unbeknownst to me that my impromptu decision to rescue the bird (the name I chose for my patient) would lead me to a web of local residents devoting significant amounts of time to provide not only rescue services for feral pigeons but X-rays, respite care, and even “pigeon physio”.

I located a cardboard box for Belinda, lined it with an old T-shirt, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those moments of mutual bewilderment interrupted my frantic search for what to do next. I called friends for suggestions and one recommended trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I discovered a local pigeon rescue group, and sent a request to become a member.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group has an organic system: someone in Manchester stumbles across an hurt pigeon, a urgent post is made, then a comment section “evaluation” follows. If the bird is deemed in need of an scan, someone with a connection to a clinic can get it one; if it needs physio, a “carer” will volunteer to look after the bird.

Carers each have their own finely honed skills, whether it’s setting broken wings or dressing wounds. Their momentous, collective effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on kindness.

Belinda was promptly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a blow to the head, and assigned to a rehabber who would provide medication and a regimen of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what made her to drop from above. I took up the role of bird taxi once more, taking the tram across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could obtain the attention she deserved.

An Unexpected Lesson

After finding this hidden pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much better about being back in my home town. I doubt any of the places I had lived in while away could claim anything remotely similar. It also dawned on me that this was not the first time I’d been part of a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one plummet from the sky into the playground of my secondary 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 several friends to pass away in the years before my departure from Manchester. I understood that this had been a major reason of what had made the return so difficult.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “therapy” animals, especially in the certain regions. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an excuse to look up at the open air between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the hard times, workers on the unemployment also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

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

That? Not our Belinda. Although improbable to ever take to the skies , she has embraced her newly land-based life with success in a volunteer’s home. Each contented sound, often prompted by her favourite treat, vegetables, feels like a example in perseverance and resilience – and I am always appreciative to her for showing me a different facet to the city I thought I knew.