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The plane forced its way through successive sheets of freezing rain during the approach into the city. A sinking feeling had accompanied me during the flight, growing stronger as I made my way through the terminal. I was unhappy about having to be the town where I had grown up, after making a home on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a few days, I headed out to get a haircut. My attention was far away, back across an ocean, when I was startled by something hit the pavement. I looked down to see a bird on its side, sprawled, and trembling.

The crash happened just as kids were emerging from the local grade school and so within moments a small chorus of children had gathered, surrounded by their parents. This group of bemused faces stared down at the creature, uncertain what to say or do. The kids were more decisive: “Dad, she needs hospital, can we call an ambulance?” I took off my jacket, crouched down and picked up the pigeon inside it. “It’s okay, love, the gentleman will look after her!” exclaimed one mother with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the ambulance for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, involuntarily, as I had a couple of days prior.

I trudged home, arms held out, with the bird curled up inside the garment.

I had no idea that my spontaneous decision to medivac the bird (the name I chose for my patient) would direct me to a web of city dwellers sacrificing significant amounts of their time to provide not only rescue services for feral pigeons but scans, respite care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I retrieved a small container for Belinda, placed inside it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those instances of shared confusion marked my frantic search for what to do after that. I phoned friends for suggestions and one recommended trying online groups, where, to my astonishment, I discovered a local pigeon rescue group, and submitted a request to join.

A Grassroots Network

Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an decentralized system: someone in Manchester finds an ailing pigeon, a pleading post is created, then a comment section “evaluation” takes place. If the bird is judged in need of an scan, someone with a vet link can arrange it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabber” will step forward to foster the bird.

Carers each have their own highly developed skills, whether it’s mending broken wings or dressing wounds. Their tremendous, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on kindness.

Belinda was promptly assessed with neurological problems, likely a head injury, and placed with a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a program of careful physio. We never learned exactly what made her to plummet. I assumed the role of bird taxi once more, boarding the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could receive the attention she deserved.

A New Perspective

After discovering this underground pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much better about being back in my hometown. I am skeptical any of the places I had lived 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 rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one drop 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 gall to pick it up and take it to a safe place.

The individual has since died – one of four friends to lose their lives in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I understood that this had been a big part of what had made the return so painful.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a history as “companion” animals, especially in the certain regions. Workers started to care for the birds because they gave them comfort and an reason to gaze up at the heavens between long shifts of darkness below. During the economic downturn, workers on the assistance also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

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

That? Not our Belinda. Although unlikely to ever take to the skies , she has taken to her newly grounded life with success in a volunteer’s home. Each contented sound, often elicited by her favourite snack, peas, feels like a lesson in adaptability and strength – and I am always appreciative to her for revealing to me a different facet to the city I believed I understood.