🔗 Share this article

T battled through wall after wall of freezing rain on its descent into Manchester. A sinking feeling filled me during the trip, intensifying as I shuffled through the terminal. I felt bitter over having to be the city where I had been raised, after residing on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an eternity.

After a couple of days, I went out to get a haircut. My thoughts was distant, focused on an vast expanse of water, when I was startled by something strike the pavement. I glanced down to see a bird on its side, splayed out, and convulsing.

The impact happened just as children were filing out from the local elementary school and so within a short time a group of youngsters had formed, surrounded by their parents. This ring of confused faces looked down at the creature, not knowing what to think or act. The kids were more decisive: “Dad, she needs a vet, can we call an animal ambulance?” I slipped off my anorak, bent down and scooped the pigeon into it. “Don’t worry, dear, the kind man will look after her!” remarked one mother with a audible relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, against its will, as I had a short time earlier.

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

Little did I know that my impromptu decision to medivac the bird (the name I chose for my avian patient) would direct me to a community of city dwellers giving up significant amounts of time to provide not only ambulances for city pigeons but scans, recovery care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I located a small container for Belinda, lined it with an old T-shirt, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those periods of shared perplexity interrupted my desperate search for what to do after that. I phoned friends for suggestions and one suggested trying social media, where, to my surprise, I found a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and sent a request to become a member.

An Anarchic Model

Over 3,000-strong, the group follows an anarchic system: someone in Manchester finds an injured pigeon, a urgent post is published, then a comment section “assessment” takes place. If the bird is considered in need of an X-ray, someone with a veterinary contact can arrange it; if it needs therapy, a “rehabber” will volunteer to foster the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own finely honed specialities, whether it’s repairing broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their tremendous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on kindness.

Belinda was promptly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a concussion, and assigned to a rehabber who would give pain relief and a regimen of patient physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to drop from above. I resumed the role of bird taxi once more, taking the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could obtain the care she deserved.

Rediscovering Home

After stumbling across this underground pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my home town. I doubt any of the places I had resided in while away could boast anything comparable. It also struck 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 drop from the sky into the schoolyard of my secondary school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the courage to rescue it and take it to a safe place.

The friend in question has since passed away – one of four friends to pass away in the years before my exit from Manchester. I understood that this had been a major reason of what had made returning home so hard.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a history as “companion” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to care for the birds because they gave them solace and an excuse to look up at the heavens between long shifts of underground work. During the hard times, workers on the assistance also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as stupid, unclean or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a vet, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave that in the lot and we’ll end its life.”

It? Not this bird. Although not expected to ever soar , she has embraced her newly earthbound life with grace in a volunteer’s extra room. Each contented sound, often caused by her favourite food, peas, feels like a demonstration in adaptability and resilience – and I am forever grateful to her for revealing to me a new dimension to the city I believed I understood.