🔗 Share this article

Our aircraft forced its way through layer after layer of icy precipitation during the approach into Manchester. A sinking feeling filled me during the trip, only deepening as I walked through the airport. I was unhappy about having to be the town where I had spent my youth, after residing 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 haircut. My mind was far away, back across an sea, when I was startled by something strike the pavement. I looked down to see a rock dove on its side, sprawled, and twitching.

The fall occurred just as children were emerging from the local primary school and so within moments a group of little ones had assembled, flanked by their mothers and fathers. This group of puzzled faces peered down at the pigeon, uncertain what to think or act. The kids were more certain: “Dad, she needs help, can we call an ambulance?” I slipped off my jacket, crouched down and gently lifted the pigeon into it. “It’s okay, dear, the gentleman will look after her!” exclaimed one mum with a sense of relief. I had turned into the ambulance for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, against its will, as I had a few days before.

I made my way home, arms held out, with the bird curled up inside the coat.

I had no idea that my spontaneous decision to rescue Belinda (the name I bestowed upon my patient) would lead me to a community of local residents sacrificing significant amounts of time to provide not only ambulances for city pigeons but X-rays, respite care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I retrieved 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 make brief contact.

Those periods of mutual bewilderment marked my desperate search for what to do next. I phoned friends for advice and one recommended trying social media, where, to my amazement, I stumbled upon a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and submitted a request to join.

A Grassroots Network

Over 3,000-strong, the group has an decentralized system: someone in Manchester stumbles across an ailing pigeon, a heartfelt post is made, then a comment section “triage” ensues. If the bird is deemed in need of an scan, someone with a connection to a clinic can organize it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “carer” will step forward to look after the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own finely honed expertise, whether it’s repairing broken wings or treating wounds. Their significant, collective effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on volunteerism.

Belinda was rapidly diagnosed with a neurological issue, likely a blow to the head, and assigned to a rehabber who would give pain relief and a regimen of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what made her to drop from above. I assumed the role of avian courier once more, taking the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the attention she deserved.

A New Perspective

After finding this underground pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my hometown. I am skeptical any of the places I had called home while away could boast anything even close. It also occurred to me that this was not the first time I’d been part of a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one plummet from the sky into the schoolyard of my secondary school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the gall to rescue it and take it to a safe place.

The friend in question has since passed away – one of a number of companions to pass away in the years before my departure from Manchester. I realised that this had been a big part of what had made coming back so hard.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a history as “companion” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to care for the birds because they gave them company and an opportunity to look up at the heavens between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the unemployment also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “social malaise”.

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

It? Not this bird. Although improbable to ever soar , she has adapted to her newly land-based life with grace in a volunteer’s extra room. Each contented call, often caused by her favourite food, peas, feels like a lesson in resilience and resilience – and I am always appreciative to her for revealing to me another side to the city I believed I understood.