🔗 Share this article

T pushed through successive sheets of sleet on its descent into the city. A sense of dread settled over me during the journey, only deepening as I made my way through the terminal. I resented having to be the town where I had been raised, after making a home on the other side of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a few days, I headed out to get a my hair cut. My attention was miles away, focused on an sea, when I was startled by something smack into the sidewalk. I gazed down to see a pigeon on its side, sprawled, and convulsing.

The fall took place just as schoolchildren were streaming out from the local grade school and so within a short time a group of children had assembled, surrounded by their parents. This circle of bemused faces stared down at the creature, uncertain what to do or say. The kids were more definitive: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an emergency service?” I took off my coat, crouched down and scooped the pigeon into it. “Don’t worry, dear, the nice man will help her!” remarked one parent with a audible relief. I had turned into the ambulance for this pigeon that had just come down hard, involuntarily, as I had a couple of days prior.

I made my way home, arms stiffly extended, with the bird curled up inside the coat.

Unbeknownst to me that my impromptu decision to rescue my feathered charge (the name I chose for my patient) would guide me to a community of city dwellers giving up significant amounts of their time to provide not only rescue services for city pigeons but diagnostic imaging, recovery care, and even “pigeon physio”.

I found a shoebox for Belinda, lined it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to share a momentary glance.

Those moments of mutual confusion interrupted my hectic search for what to do next. I phoned friends for suggestions and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I discovered a local pigeon rescue group, and submitted a request to become a member.

An Anarchic Model

With a large membership, the group operates on an organic method: someone in Manchester finds an injured pigeon, a urgent post is created, then a comment section “assessment” ensues. If the bird is deemed in need of an examination, someone with a veterinary contact can get it one; if it needs rehabilitation, a “carer” will offer to foster the bird.

Carers each have their own carefully cultivated skills, whether it’s mending broken wings or treating wounds. Their tremendous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on kindness.

Belinda was rapidly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a blow to the head, and matched with a rehabber who would give medication and a regimen of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to drop from above. I assumed the role of avian courier once more, riding the tram across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could receive the treatment she needed.

Rediscovering Home

After stumbling across this hidden pigeon “NHS”, 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 remotely similar. It also dawned on me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one drop from the sky into the schoolyard of my high school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the courage to rescue it and take it to a safe place.

The individual has since been lost – one of four friends to die in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a major reason of what had made the return so hard.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a history as “therapy” animals, especially in the north of England. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them company and an opportunity to look up at the heavens between long shifts of underground work. During the Depression, 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, dirty or a general nuisance. 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 euthanise it.”

It? Not our Belinda. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has embraced her newly earthbound life with success in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each happy call, often caused by her favourite snack, vegetables, feels like a demonstration in perseverance and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for showing me a different facet to the city I thought I knew.