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Our aircraft pushed through layer after layer of freezing rain as it landed into Manchester. A sense of dread had accompanied me during the flight, intensifying as I shuffled through the arrivals hall. I felt bitter over returning to the city where I had grown up, after living on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a short while, I ventured out to get a my hair cut. My attention was miles away, lingering over an sea, when I was startled by something strike the ground. I gazed down to see a bird on its wings, splayed out, and twitching.

The impact happened just as schoolchildren were streaming out from the local elementary school and so within a short time a little crowd of youngsters had gathered, accompanied by their mums and dads. This circle of puzzled faces peered down at the bird, uncertain what to say or do. The kids were more certain: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an emergency service?” I removed my anorak, bent down and scooped the pigeon into it. “Don’t worry, sweet, the nice man will look after her!” exclaimed one mother with a sense of relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, against its will, as I had a short time earlier.

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

I had no idea that my on-the-spot decision to medivac Belinda (the name I chose for my avian patient) would lead me to a community of city dwellers devoting significant amounts of time to provide not only rescue services for feral pigeons but diagnostic imaging, convalescence, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I retrieved a shoebox for Belinda, placed inside it with an old T-shirt, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d open the box just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those moments of common bewilderment punctuated my desperate search for what to do after that. I phoned friends for advice and one recommended trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I found a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to join.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group operates on an organic model: someone in Manchester stumbles across an ailing pigeon, a heartfelt post is published, then a comment section “evaluation” ensues. If the bird is judged in need of an examination, someone with a veterinary contact can organize it; if it needs therapy, a “rehabilitator” will step forward to look after the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own carefully cultivated expertise, whether it’s repairing broken wings or dressing wounds. Their momentous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on goodwill.

Belinda was quickly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a blow to the head, and assigned to a rehabber who would give comfort and a program of patient physio. We never learned exactly what made her to drop from above. I assumed the role of avian courier once more, riding the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could obtain the treatment she deserved.

Rediscovering Home

After stumbling across this underground pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my home town. I am skeptical any of the places I had resided in while away could claim anything remotely similar. It also occurred to me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one fall from the sky into the grounds of my old school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the courage to rescue it and take it to security.

The individual has since been lost – one of four friends to pass away 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 hard.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a tradition as “emotional support” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to raise the birds because they gave them solace and an opportunity to look up at the open air between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the Depression, workers on the assistance also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “idleness”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as simple, dirty or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave it in the lot and we’ll put it down.”

That? Not her. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has embraced her newly earthbound life with grace in a volunteer’s extra room. Each satisfied call, often caused by her favourite treat, vegetables, feels like a demonstration in adaptability and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for showing me another side to the city I was familiar with.