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The plane forced its way through wall after wall of freezing rain during the approach into Manchester. A growing unease settled over me during the flight, growing stronger as I made my way through the airport. I was unhappy about having to be the place 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 couple of days, I ventured out to get a haircut. My mind was distant, focused on an vast expanse of water, when I became aware of something smack into the ground. I glanced down to see a rock dove on its back, splayed out, and twitching.

The impact occurred just as children were emerging from the local elementary school and so within a short time a little crowd of youngsters had formed, accompanied by their mothers and fathers. This group of bemused faces looked down at the pigeon, unsure what to say or do. The kids were more decisive: “Papa, she needs help, can we call an animal ambulance?” I removed my coat, crouched down and scooped the pigeon into it. “It’s okay, love, the kind man will help her!” remarked one mum with a audible relief. I had become the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just come down hard, involuntarily, as I had a few days before.

I trudged home, arms held out, with the bird nestled inside the coat.

I had no idea that my spontaneous decision to rescue my feathered charge (the name I gave my new friend) would guide me to a community of local residents giving up significant amounts of their time to provide not only transport for feral pigeons but scans, convalescence, and even “pigeon physio”.

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

Those moments of shared bewilderment punctuated my frantic search for what to do after that. I phoned friends for guidance and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I discovered a local pigeon rescue group, and submitted a request to participate.

A Grassroots Network

With a large membership, the group follows an organic system: someone in Manchester finds an hurt pigeon, a heartfelt post is created, then a comment section “evaluation” takes place. If the bird is deemed in need of an X-ray, someone with a vet link can organize it; if it needs therapy, a “carer” will step forward to foster the bird.

Volunteers each have their own highly developed expertise, whether it’s setting broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their significant, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on volunteerism.

Belinda was quickly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a head injury, and assigned to a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a course of patient physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to plummet. I resumed the role of avian courier once more, taking the tram across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could receive the attention she required.

A New Perspective

After stumbling across this secret pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my city. I am skeptical any of the places I had resided in while away could claim anything comparable. It also dawned on 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 playground of my old school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the courage to rescue it and take it to safety.

The aforementioned friend has since been lost – one of several friends to pass away in the years before my departure from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made coming back so difficult.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a history as “emotional support” animals, especially in the north of England. Miners started to care for 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 economic downturn, workers on the unemployment also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “despair”.

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

It? Not her. Although unlikely to ever soar , she has taken to her newly land-based life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each contented call, often prompted by her favourite treat, peas, feels like a demonstration in adaptability and strength – and I am eternally thankful to her for revealing to me another side to the city I was familiar with.