🔗 Share this article

The plane pushed through wall after wall of freezing rain on its descent into the city. A sinking feeling had accompanied me during the journey, only deepening as I made my way through the arrivals hall. I was unhappy about coming back to the city where I had been raised, after residing on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an eternity.

After a couple of days, I ventured out to get a my hair cut. My mind was miles away, focused on an sea, when I became aware of something strike the pavement. I looked down to see a pigeon on its side, spatchcocked, and trembling.

The impact occurred just as schoolchildren were streaming out from the local elementary school and so within minutes a small chorus of children had gathered, flanked by their parents. This group of confused faces peered down at the creature, not knowing what to say or do. The kids were more definitive: “Dad, she needs hospital, can we call an animal ambulance?” I removed my coat, bent down and gently lifted the pigeon into it. “No problem, sweet, the kind man will look after her!” said one parent with a audible relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, unintentionally, as I had a short time earlier.

I walked slowly home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird curled up inside the jacket.

Little did I know that my impromptu decision to aid Belinda (the name I chose for my new friend) would lead me to a network of Mancunians giving up significant amounts of their time to provide not only rescue services for feral pigeons but X-rays, convalescence, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I retrieved a small container for Belinda, placed inside 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 common perplexity marked my desperate search for what to do from there. I contacted friends for guidance and one suggested trying social media, where, to my amazement, I stumbled upon a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and put in a request to become a member.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an organic system: someone in Manchester finds an ailing pigeon, a pleading post is published, then a comment section “triage” takes place. If the bird is judged in need of an examination, someone with a veterinary contact can organize it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabilitator” will volunteer to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own highly developed skills, whether it’s repairing broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their significant, combined effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by goodwill.

Belinda was promptly assessed with neurological problems, likely a head injury, and matched with a rehabber who would administer pain relief and a regimen of patient physio. We never found out exactly what caused her to plummet. I assumed the role of bird taxi once more, riding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could get the treatment she required.

Rediscovering Home

After finding this secret pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my city. I am skeptical any of the places I had resided in while away could have anything even close. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one fall from the sky into the grounds of my high school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the gall to rescue it and take it to security.

The friend in question has since been lost – one of several friends to pass away in the years before my exit from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made coming back so painful.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a tradition as “therapy” animals, especially in the North. Miners started to care for the birds because they gave them company and an excuse to gaze up at the sky between long shifts of darkness below. During the Depression, workers on the unemployment also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

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

The bird? Not this bird. Although improbable to ever fly again , she has adapted to her newly earthbound life with aplomb in a volunteer’s home. Each satisfied coo, often elicited by her favourite snack, peas, feels like a example in perseverance and strength – and I am forever grateful to her for showing me a different facet to the city I believed I understood.