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Our aircraft pushed through wall after wall of freezing rain during the approach into the city. A sense of dread had accompanied me during the journey, growing stronger as I shuffled through the arrivals hall. I felt bitter over having to be the town where I had spent my youth, after residing on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a short while, I ventured out to get a my hair cut. My thoughts was far away, focused on an sea, when I was startled by something smack into the sidewalk. I looked down to see a bird on its side, spatchcocked, and trembling.

The fall occurred just as schoolchildren were streaming out from the local grade school and so within a short time a group of youngsters had gathered, flanked by their parents. This ring of puzzled faces stared down at the pigeon, uncertain what to do or say. The kids were more definitive: “Dad, she needs a vet, can we call an emergency service?” I slipped off my coat, crouched down and gently lifted the pigeon into it. “Don’t worry, dear, the kind man will help her!” exclaimed one mother with a sense of relief. I had been transformed into the ambulance for this pigeon that had just come down hard, against its will, as I had a short time earlier.

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

Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to aid Belinda (the name I bestowed upon my avian patient) would direct me to a community of city dwellers giving up significant amounts of their time to provide not only ambulances for street birds but X-rays, recovery care, and even “pigeon physio”.

I retrieved a cardboard box for Belinda, prepared it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those periods of shared perplexity interrupted my desperate search for what to do after that. I called friends for guidance and one recommended trying online groups, where, to my amazement, I discovered a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to become a member.

A Grassroots Network

Boasting thousands of members, the group has an organic system: someone in Manchester stumbles across an hurt pigeon, a heartfelt post is published, then a comment section “assessment” follows. If the bird is deemed in need of an X-ray, someone with a connection to a clinic can arrange it; if it needs physio, a “rehabilitator” will step forward to look after the bird.

Volunteers each have their own highly developed expertise, whether it’s repairing broken wings or treating wounds. Their significant, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by volunteerism.

Belinda was quickly diagnosed with brain trauma, likely a concussion, and matched with a rehabber who would give pain relief and a regimen of careful physio. We never found out exactly what caused her to plummet. I took up the role of bird taxi once more, riding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could receive the treatment she deserved.

Rediscovering Home

After discovering this secret pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my home town. I am skeptical any of the places I had called home 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 recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one drop from the sky into the schoolyard of my high school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the nerve to rescue it and take it to safety.

The individual has since passed away – one of a number of companions to die in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I understood that this had been a major reason of what had made returning home so difficult.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a tradition as “therapy” animals, especially in the north of England. Workers started to raise the birds because they gave them company and an excuse to stare at the heavens between long shifts of underground work. During the economic downturn, workers on the assistance also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as stupid, dirty or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a vet, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave it in the parking lot and we’ll put it down.”

That? Not her. Although improbable to ever fly again , she has adapted to her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each happy coo, often elicited by her favourite food, vegetables, feels like a lesson in perseverance and strength – and I am always appreciative to her for unveiling for me a new dimension to the city I was familiar with.