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The plane pushed through wall after wall of freezing rain as it landed into the city. A growing unease settled over me during the trip, growing stronger as I shuffled through the arrivals hall. I resented returning to the city where I had been raised, after living on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an eternity.

After a couple of days, I headed out to get a trim. My thoughts was far away, back across an sea, when I was startled by something strike the ground. I looked down to see a rock dove on its back, spatchcocked, and convulsing.

The fall occurred just as kids were filing out from the local elementary school and so within a short time a group of children had gathered, flanked by their mothers and fathers. This group of confused faces peered down at the creature, not knowing what to say or do. The kids were more definitive: “Papa, she needs a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I took off my coat, bent down and picked up the pigeon into it. “No problem, dear, the gentleman will look after her!” exclaimed one parent with a audible relief. I had been transformed into the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just come down hard, involuntarily, as I had a couple of days prior.

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

Unbeknownst to me that my impromptu decision to rescue Belinda (the name I bestowed upon my patient) would direct me to a network of local residents devoting significant amounts of effort to provide not only rescue services for street birds but diagnostic imaging, respite care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I located a small container for Belinda, lined it with an old T-shirt, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those moments of shared confusion interrupted my frantic search for what to do from there. I phoned friends for advice and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my amazement, I found a local pigeon rescue group, and put in a request to participate.

An Anarchic Model

With a large membership, the group operates on an anarchic system: someone in Manchester stumbles across an injured pigeon, a heartfelt post is made, then a comment section “triage” follows. If the bird is judged in need of an examination, someone with a connection to a clinic can organize it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabilitator” will offer to look after the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own finely honed skills, whether it’s setting broken wings or dressing wounds. Their significant, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by volunteerism.

Belinda was rapidly diagnosed with a neurological issue, likely a head injury, and placed with a rehabber who would provide medication and a course of gentle physio. We never discovered exactly what made her to drop from above. I resumed the role of avian courier once more, boarding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could receive the treatment she needed.

Rediscovering Home

After finding this hidden pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my home town. I doubt any of the places I had lived in while away could have anything comparable. 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 observed one fall from the sky into the grounds of my secondary school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the gall to pick it up and take it to safety.

The individual has since passed away – one of several friends to die in the years before my exit from Manchester. I realised that this had been a big part of what had made the return so painful.

A History of Comfort

Pigeons have a history as “therapy” animals, especially in the North. Miners started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an reason to look up at the sky between long shifts of darkness below. During the hard times, workers on the dole also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as unintelligent, unclean or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a vet, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave it in the lot and we’ll end its life.”

The bird? Not our Belinda. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has adapted to her newly earthbound life with aplomb in a volunteer’s extra room. Each contented coo, often elicited by her favourite food, peas, feels like a lesson in resilience and resilience – and I am eternally thankful to her for showing me a different facet to the city I thought I knew.