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Our aircraft forced its way through layer after layer of sleet as it landed into the city. A growing unease filled me during the journey, growing stronger as I made my way through the terminal. I resented coming back to the town where I had grown up, after residing 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 haircut. My mind was far away, back across an sea, when I became aware of something strike the sidewalk. I gazed down to see a bird on its wings, spatchcocked, and convulsing.

The fall occurred just as schoolchildren were streaming out from the local grade school and so within a short time a little crowd of children had assembled, accompanied by their mothers and fathers. This ring of puzzled faces stared down at the bird, uncertain what to say or do. The kids were more definitive: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an ambulance?” I took off my anorak, bent down and gently lifted the pigeon into it. “No problem, sweet, the kind man will take care of her!” remarked one mum with a sigh of relief. I had turned into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, against its will, as I had a short time earlier.

I trudged home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird tucked safely inside the coat.

Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to aid the bird (the name I gave my avian patient) would lead me to a community of local residents devoting significant amounts of their time to provide not only rescue services for street birds but diagnostic imaging, convalescence, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I found a cardboard box 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 instances of mutual confusion interrupted my frantic search for what to do next. I phoned friends for guidance and one suggested trying online groups, where, to my surprise, I discovered a bird rehabilitation group, and sent a request to participate.

A Community Effort

With a large membership, the group operates on an decentralized method: someone in Manchester stumbles across an ailing pigeon, a urgent post is published, then a comment section “assessment” ensues. If the bird is judged in need of an scan, someone with a vet link can get it one; if it needs therapy, a “carer” will offer to foster the bird.

Carers each have their own carefully cultivated specialities, whether it’s mending broken wings or treating wounds. Their tremendous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by volunteerism.

Belinda was rapidly diagnosed with a neurological issue, likely a concussion, and assigned to a rehabber who would provide medication and a course of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to plummet. I assumed the role of bird taxi once more, taking the tram across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could obtain the care she required.

Rediscovering Home

After discovering this underground pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much better about being back in my home town. I am skeptical any of the places I had lived in while away could claim anything comparable. 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 observed one fall from the sky into the schoolyard of my high school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the gall to pick it up and take it to safety.

The friend in question has since passed away – one of a number of companions to lose their lives in the years before my departure from Manchester. I realised that this had been a significant factor of what had made returning home so painful.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the certain regions. Miners started to raise the birds because they gave them comfort and an opportunity to gaze up at the sky between long shifts of underground work. During the economic downturn, workers on the assistance also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “idleness”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as simple, diseased or a pest. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a animal doctor, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave it in the car park and we’ll put it down.”

The bird? Not this bird. Although unlikely to ever fly again , she has taken to her newly land-based life with success in a volunteer’s extra room. Each contented coo, often prompted by her favourite snack, frozen peas, feels like a demonstration in resilience and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for unveiling for me another side to the city I thought I knew.