🔗 Share this article

Our aircraft battled through wall after wall of icy precipitation on its descent into Manchester. A sense of dread filled me during the trip, only deepening as I walked through the airport. I resented returning to the city where I had spent my youth, after living on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a short while, I ventured out to get a trim. My thoughts was miles away, focused on an sea, when I heard something strike the ground. I glanced down to see a bird on its side, sprawled, and twitching.

The impact happened just as kids were emerging from the local primary school and so within moments a little crowd of little ones had gathered, accompanied by their mothers and fathers. This ring of bemused faces peered down at the bird, uncertain what to think or act. The kids were more certain: “Papa, she needs a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I took off my jacket, crouched down and scooped the pigeon inside it. “It’s okay, dear, the gentleman will look after her!” remarked one mum with a sense of relief. I had turned into the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, unintentionally, as I had a couple of days prior.

I made my way home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird curled up inside the garment.

Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to medivac my feathered charge (the name I bestowed upon my avian patient) would direct me to a community of Mancunians devoting significant amounts of time to provide not only ambulances for feral pigeons but X-rays, respite care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I found a cardboard box for Belinda, prepared it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to share a momentary glance.

Those periods of shared confusion interrupted my frantic search for what to do next. I contacted friends for advice and one suggested trying online groups, where, to my astonishment, I found a local pigeon rescue group, and submitted a request to become a member.

An Anarchic Model

Boasting thousands of members, the group has an anarchic method: someone in Manchester finds an ailing pigeon, a urgent post is published, then a comment section “assessment” takes place. If the bird is considered in need of an examination, someone with a vet link can arrange it; if it needs therapy, a “carer” will step forward to care for the bird.

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

Belinda was promptly assessed with a neurological issue, likely a blow to the head, and placed with a rehabber who would give pain relief and a program of patient physio. We never discovered exactly what made her to fall from the sky. I took up the role of pigeon ambulance once more, riding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the attention she deserved.

An Unexpected Lesson

After discovering this underground pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my city. I question 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 recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one fall from the sky into the schoolyard of my old school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the courage to scoop it up and take it to a safe place.

The aforementioned friend has since died – 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 coming back so difficult.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “therapy” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them company and an excuse to gaze up at the sky between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the Depression, workers on the assistance also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “idleness”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as simple, 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 euthanise it.”

That? Not her. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has adapted to her newly land-based life with success in a volunteer’s extra room. Each satisfied coo, often prompted by her favourite treat, vegetables, feels like a example in adaptability and fortitude – and I am eternally thankful to her for revealing to me a new dimension to the city I believed I understood.