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T battled through wall after wall of sleet during the approach into its destination. A growing unease had accompanied me during the flight, intensifying as I shuffled through the airport. I was unhappy about having to be the town where I had grown up, after living on the other side of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a short while, I went out to get a my hair cut. My thoughts was miles away, back across an sea, when I was startled by something smack into the ground. I gazed down to see a rock dove on its side, spatchcocked, and convulsing.

The crash happened just as schoolchildren were emerging from the local elementary school and so within moments a group of youngsters had assembled, flanked by their parents. This circle of confused faces peered down at the creature, uncertain what to think or act. The kids were more certain: “Papa, she needs hospital, can we call an animal ambulance?” I removed my anorak, knelt down and picked up the pigeon into it. “It’s okay, dear, the kind man will help her!” remarked one mother with a sense of relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, against its will, as I had a couple of days prior.

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

I had no idea that my impromptu decision to rescue my feathered charge (the name I gave my new friend) would guide me to a network of Mancunians devoting significant amounts of their time to provide not only transport for city pigeons but diagnostic imaging, convalescence, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I located a shoebox for Belinda, placed inside it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to share a momentary glance.

Those periods of mutual perplexity punctuated my desperate search for what to do next. I called friends for guidance and one suggested trying online groups, where, to my astonishment, I discovered a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to join.

A Grassroots Network

Boasting thousands of members, the group has an organic system: someone in Manchester finds an injured pigeon, a pleading post is created, then a comment section “assessment” takes place. If the bird is deemed in need of an X-ray, someone with a veterinary contact can organize it; if it needs physio, a “rehabber” will offer to look after the bird.

Volunteers each have their own finely honed expertise, whether it’s setting broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their tremendous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by goodwill.

Belinda was quickly assessed with brain trauma, likely a blow to the head, and matched with a rehabber who would administer medication and a program of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to drop from above. I assumed the role of bird taxi once more, riding the tram across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could obtain the treatment she required.

A New Perspective

After discovering this underground pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my home town. I question any of the places I had resided in while away could claim anything even close. 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 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 nerve to pick it up and take it to a safe place.

The friend in question has since been lost – one of a number of companions to lose their lives in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I realised that this had been a major reason of what had made the return so hard.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “therapy” animals, especially in the certain regions. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them comfort and an excuse to look up at the heavens between long shifts of darkness below. During the Depression, workers on the dole also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “idleness”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as simple, dirty or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a animal doctor, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave that in the lot and we’ll end its life.”

It? Not her. Although not expected to ever soar , she has taken to her newly earthbound life with success in a volunteer’s extra room. Each satisfied coo, often caused by her favourite treat, frozen peas, feels like a lesson in adaptability and resilience – and I am eternally thankful to her for showing me a new dimension to the city I was familiar with.