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T battled through wall after wall of icy precipitation on its descent into the city. A growing unease settled over me during the flight, only deepening as I made my way through the arrivals hall. I was unhappy about having to be the town where I had spent my youth, after residing on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a few days, I headed out to get a my hair cut. My mind was far away, lingering over an vast expanse of water, when I was startled by something smack into the ground. I gazed down to see a bird on its back, splayed out, and trembling.

The impact took place just as children were emerging from the local elementary school and so within a short time a small chorus of little ones had gathered, accompanied by their mums and dads. This ring of bemused faces looked down at the bird, not knowing what to do or say. The kids were more decisive: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an animal ambulance?” I removed my anorak, crouched down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “It’s okay, sweet, the gentleman will help her!” said one mum with a audible relief. I had been transformed into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, unintentionally, as I had a short time earlier.

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

Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to rescue my feathered charge (the name I gave my patient) would direct me to a community of Mancunians giving up significant amounts of their time to provide not only transport for feral pigeons but scans, respite care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I found a small container for Belinda, placed inside it with an old piece of cloth, 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 mutual confusion interrupted my frantic search for what to do next. I phoned friends for advice and one proposed trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I stumbled upon a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and put in a request to join.

A Grassroots Network

Over 3,000-strong, the group has an organic method: someone in Manchester finds an hurt pigeon, a urgent post is created, then a comment section “evaluation” takes place. If the bird is judged in need of an X-ray, someone with a vet link can organize it; if it needs physio, a “rehabber” will step forward to foster the bird.

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

Belinda was rapidly diagnosed with brain trauma, likely a concussion, and placed with a rehabber who would administer medication and a program of careful physio. We never learned exactly what made her to plummet. I resumed the role of pigeon ambulance once more, taking the tram across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could receive the treatment she required.

Rediscovering Home

After discovering this hidden pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much better about being back in my home town. I question any of the places I had lived in while away could claim 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 old school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the gall to rescue it and take it to a safe place.

The friend in question has since passed away – one of several friends to lose their lives in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a big part of what had made the return so painful.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the north of England. Miners started to care for the birds because they gave them company and an opportunity to gaze up at the open air between long shifts of darkness below. During the economic downturn, workers on the unemployment also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “social malaise”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as simple, dirty or a pest. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring that here, leave it in the lot and we’ll end its life.”

That? Not this bird. Although improbable to ever take to the skies , she has taken to her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s extra room. Each happy sound, often caused by her favourite snack, vegetables, feels like a demonstration in adaptability and strength – and I am forever grateful to her for revealing to me a new dimension to the city I believed I understood.