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Our aircraft forced its way through layer after layer of sleet on its descent into the city. A sinking feeling settled over me during the journey, only deepening as I walked through the terminal. I was unhappy about having to be the place where I had been raised, after living on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a short while, I ventured out to get a haircut. My attention was distant, lingering over an ocean, when I heard something strike the ground. I glanced down to see a rock dove on its back, sprawled, and convulsing.

The crash happened just as schoolchildren were streaming out from the local primary school and so within minutes a small chorus of youngsters had gathered, flanked by their mums and dads. This circle of puzzled faces looked down at the pigeon, uncertain what to do or say. The kids were more certain: “Papa, she needs hospital, can we call an emergency service?” I slipped off my jacket, crouched down and scooped the pigeon into it. “No problem, sweet, the gentleman will take care of her!” remarked one parent with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, unintentionally, as I had a couple of days prior.

I made my way home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird curled up inside the garment.

Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to aid Belinda (the name I gave my patient) would direct me to a web of city dwellers devoting significant amounts of effort to provide not only rescue services for street birds but scans, convalescence, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I found a cardboard box for Belinda, prepared 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 share a momentary glance.

Those periods of mutual bewilderment marked my hectic search for what to do after that. I phoned friends for suggestions and one proposed trying social media, where, to my surprise, I found a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to join.

A Grassroots Network

With a large membership, the group has an organic model: someone in Manchester discovers an hurt pigeon, a urgent post is created, then a comment section “assessment” ensues. If the bird is judged in need of an X-ray, someone with a veterinary contact can get it one; if it needs rehabilitation, a “carer” will volunteer to foster the bird.

Volunteers each have their own finely honed skills, whether it’s repairing broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their tremendous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on volunteerism.

Belinda was quickly assessed with neurological problems, likely a concussion, and placed with a rehabber who would administer medication 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 attention she required.

A New Perspective

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 lived in while away could have anything comparable. It also occurred to me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed 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 courage to rescue it and take it to safety.

The aforementioned friend has since been lost – one of a number of companions to die in the years before my exit from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a major reason of what had made coming back so hard.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the north of England. Miners started to raise the birds because they gave them comfort and an reason to look up at the heavens between long shifts of underground work. During the hard times, workers on the dole also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as unintelligent, dirty or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave that in the parking lot and we’ll end its life.”

That? Not our Belinda. Although unlikely to ever soar , she has taken to her newly land-based life with grace in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each satisfied call, often caused by her favourite food, frozen peas, feels like a demonstration in perseverance and resilience – and I am eternally thankful to her for showing me another side to the city I was familiar with.