🔗 Share this article

The plane pushed through wall after wall of icy precipitation on its descent into the city. A sense of dread had accompanied me during the flight, intensifying as I walked through the arrivals hall. I felt bitter over returning to the city where I had been raised, after living on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a few days, I went out to get a my hair cut. My mind was far away, lingering over an vast expanse of water, when I heard something strike the ground. I glanced down to see a bird on its side, sprawled, and convulsing.

The crash happened just as children were filing out from the local primary school and so within a short time a group of little ones had assembled, flanked by their parents. This ring of confused faces stared down at the pigeon, uncertain what to say or do. The kids were more certain: “Daddy, she needs a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I slipped off my coat, crouched down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “It’s okay, dear, the gentleman will look after her!” remarked one parent with a sigh of relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, involuntarily, as I had a few days before.

I made my way home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird tucked safely inside the garment.

I had no idea that my spontaneous decision to medivac Belinda (the name I gave my patient) would lead me to a community of Mancunians giving up significant amounts of effort to provide not only ambulances for street birds but scans, recovery care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I located a shoebox for Belinda, lined it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those periods of shared confusion interrupted my frantic search for what to do from there. I called friends for advice and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my amazement, I found a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to join.

A Community Effort

Over 3,000-strong, the group operates on an anarchic model: someone in Manchester finds an hurt pigeon, a pleading post is created, then a comment section “assessment” follows. If the bird is deemed in need of an X-ray, someone with a veterinary contact can arrange it; if it needs physio, a “carer” will step forward to foster the bird.

Volunteers each have their own carefully cultivated expertise, whether it’s setting broken wings or treating wounds. Their momentous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by goodwill.

Belinda was promptly assessed with a neurological issue, likely a head injury, and placed with a rehabber who would provide comfort and a course of patient physio. We never found out exactly what made her to plummet. I assumed the role of pigeon ambulance once more, taking the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could obtain the care she required.

Rediscovering Home

After finding this secret pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my home town. I question any of the places I had called home while away could have anything comparable. It also dawned on me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one fall from the sky into the schoolyard of my secondary school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the gall to scoop it up and take it to a safe place.

The aforementioned friend has since been lost – one of four friends to lose their lives in the years before my exit from Manchester. I understood that this had been a big part of what had made returning home so difficult.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a history as “emotional support” animals, especially in the north of England. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an reason to gaze up at the sky between long shifts of underground work. During the hard times, workers on the assistance also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as stupid, diseased or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave it in the lot and we’ll euthanise it.”

It? Not this bird. Although not expected to ever take to the skies , she has embraced her newly land-based life with aplomb in a volunteer’s extra room. Each satisfied call, often prompted by her favourite food, peas, feels like a lesson in resilience and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for unveiling for me another side to the city I believed I understood.