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The plane pushed through wall after wall of freezing rain during the approach into its destination. A growing unease had accompanied me during the trip, only deepening as I shuffled through the terminal. I resented coming back to 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 short while, I headed out to get a my hair cut. My mind was miles away, back across an sea, when I heard something smack into the pavement. I glanced down to see a rock dove on its side, sprawled, and trembling.

The fall occurred just as kids were streaming out from the local elementary school and so within minutes a small chorus of youngsters had formed, surrounded by their parents. This ring of bemused faces peered down at the creature, uncertain what to say or do. The kids were more decisive: “Daddy, she needs a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I slipped off my anorak, crouched down and scooped the pigeon into it. “It’s okay, dear, the nice man will help her!” said one parent with a audible relief. I had been transformed into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, unintentionally, as I had a couple of days prior.

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

Unbeknownst to me that my impromptu decision to aid the bird (the name I chose for my patient) would direct me to a web of city dwellers devoting significant amounts of effort to provide not only rescue services for city pigeons but scans, recovery care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I located a shoebox for Belinda, prepared it with an old T-shirt, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those moments of mutual bewilderment marked my frantic search for what to do from there. I phoned friends for guidance and one proposed trying online groups, where, to my surprise, I found a bird rehabilitation group, and put in a request to participate.

A Grassroots Network

Boasting thousands of members, the group operates on an anarchic system: someone in Manchester stumbles across an ailing pigeon, a pleading post is created, then a comment section “evaluation” ensues. If the bird is considered in need of an X-ray, someone with a connection to a clinic can get it one; if it needs therapy, a “rehabber” will volunteer to foster the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own finely honed skills, whether it’s repairing broken wings or dressing wounds. Their significant, combined effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on goodwill.

Belinda was quickly assessed with neurological problems, likely a blow to the head, and matched with a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a program of patient physio. We never learned exactly what made her to plummet. I took up the role of bird taxi once more, boarding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could receive the attention she required.

A New Perspective

After finding this secret pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my hometown. I question any of the places I had lived in while away could have anything remotely similar. It also dawned on me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one fall from the sky into the schoolyard of my secondary school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the gall to pick it up and take it to safety.

The individual has since been lost – one of a number of companions to lose their lives in the years before my exit from Manchester. I understood that this had been a significant factor of what had made returning home so difficult.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a history as “emotional support” animals, especially in the certain regions. Miners started to raise the birds because they gave them solace and an opportunity to stare at the sky between long shifts of underground work. During the Depression, workers on the assistance also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “social malaise”.

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

The bird? Not our Belinda. Although not expected to ever soar , she has embraced her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each happy coo, often prompted by her favourite snack, frozen peas, feels like a demonstration in adaptability and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for unveiling for me another side to the city I believed I understood.