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The plane battled through successive sheets of freezing rain during the approach into its destination. A growing unease filled me during the journey, intensifying as I shuffled through the airport. I was unhappy about having to be the city where I had grown up, after making a home on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a short while, I went out to get a my hair cut. My attention was far away, back across an vast expanse of water, when I was startled by something smack into the ground. I looked down to see a pigeon on its wings, splayed out, and trembling.

The crash occurred just as kids were filing out from the local grade school and so within moments a small chorus of youngsters had formed, surrounded by their mothers and fathers. This group of bemused faces peered down at the pigeon, unsure what to say or do. The kids were more decisive: “Papa, she needs help, can we call an emergency service?” I slipped off my jacket, crouched down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “It’s okay, dear, the nice man will look after her!” exclaimed one parent with a sense of relief. I had been transformed into the ambulance for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, involuntarily, as I had a few days before.

I trudged home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird nestled inside the garment.

Little did I know that my on-the-spot decision to rescue the bird (the name I chose for my patient) would lead me to a network of city dwellers sacrificing significant amounts of time to provide not only rescue services for street birds but X-rays, respite care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I located a cardboard box for Belinda, placed inside it with an old T-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 periods of mutual bewilderment punctuated my frantic search for what to do after that. I contacted friends for suggestions and one suggested trying social media, where, to my astonishment, I stumbled upon a bird rehabilitation group, and put in a request to become a member.

An Anarchic Model

With a large membership, the group has an organic model: someone in Manchester finds an injured pigeon, a pleading post is created, then a comment section “triage” takes place. If the bird is judged in need of an scan, someone with a vet link can arrange it; if it needs therapy, a “rehabber” will step forward to look after the bird.

Rehabbers each have their own highly developed specialities, whether it’s setting broken wings or dressing wounds. Their momentous, collective effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by kindness.

Belinda was quickly assessed with a neurological issue, likely a head injury, and assigned to a rehabber who would provide medication and a program of patient physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to plummet. I resumed the role of pigeon ambulance once more, boarding the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could obtain the attention she needed.

Rediscovering Home

After discovering this underground pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much better about being back in my city. I am skeptical 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 connected to a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one fall from the sky into the playground of my old school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the gall to rescue it and take it to security.

The aforementioned friend has since died – one of several friends to die in the years before my departure from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a big part of what had made returning home so difficult.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a history as “companion” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an excuse to gaze up at the heavens between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the Depression, workers on the dole also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as unintelligent, dirty or a pest. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave that in the car park and we’ll euthanise it.”

The bird? Not our Belinda. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has embraced her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each happy coo, often prompted by her favourite treat, vegetables, feels like a example in resilience and strength – and I am forever grateful to her for showing me a different facet to the city I believed I understood.