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The plane forced its way through successive sheets of freezing rain during the approach into its destination. A sinking feeling filled me during the flight, growing stronger as I shuffled through the airport. I resented coming back to the town where I had grown up, after residing on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a short while, I went out to get a haircut. My attention was far away, focused on an vast expanse of water, when I became aware of something smack into the ground. I gazed down to see a pigeon on its wings, spatchcocked, and convulsing.

The fall occurred just as schoolchildren were streaming out from the local elementary school and so within moments a group of children had assembled, accompanied by their parents. This circle of puzzled faces stared down at the bird, unsure what to think or act. The kids were more definitive: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an emergency service?” I slipped off my jacket, bent down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “No problem, sweet, the gentleman will help her!” remarked one mother with a audible relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just come down hard, unintentionally, as I had a few days before.

I trudged home, arms stiffly extended, with the bird curled up inside the garment.

Unbeknownst to me that my impromptu decision to medivac Belinda (the name I bestowed upon my new friend) would direct me to a community of city dwellers sacrificing significant amounts of their time to provide not only transport for city pigeons but scans, convalescence, and even “pigeon physio”.

I located a cardboard box for Belinda, prepared it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those periods of shared confusion interrupted my frantic search for what to do after that. I phoned friends for suggestions and one recommended trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I found a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to participate.

An Anarchic Model

Over 3,000-strong, the group follows an decentralized method: someone in Manchester stumbles across an hurt pigeon, a pleading post is made, then a comment section “evaluation” takes place. If the bird is considered in need of an examination, someone with a connection to a clinic can organize it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “carer” will volunteer to look after the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own highly developed skills, whether it’s mending broken wings or treating wounds. Their tremendous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on goodwill.

Belinda was quickly diagnosed with brain trauma, likely a head injury, and matched with a rehabber who would provide comfort and a regimen of patient physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to plummet. I resumed the role of avian courier once more, boarding the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could get the treatment she needed.

A New Perspective

After discovering this secret pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my hometown. I am skeptical any of the places I had called home while away could have anything remotely similar. 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 playground of my old school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the gall to pick it up and take it to security.

The friend in question has since died – one of a number of companions to die in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made coming back so painful.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a history as “therapy” animals, especially in the north of England. Miners started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an opportunity to stare at the open air between long shifts of darkness below. During the hard times, workers on the unemployment also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as unintelligent, unclean or a pest. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a vet, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave it in the car park and we’ll put it down.”

The bird? Not her. Although not expected to ever take to the skies , she has taken to her newly earthbound life with grace in a volunteer’s home. Each happy coo, often prompted by her favourite snack, frozen peas, feels like a lesson in perseverance and resilience – and I am forever grateful to her for unveiling for me another side to the city I was familiar with.