The plane pushed through wall after wall of icy precipitation during the approach into the city. A sense of dread filled me during the journey, only deepening as I shuffled through the terminal. I felt bitter over coming back to the place where I had been raised, after residing on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.
After a couple of days, I ventured out to get a haircut. My attention was far away, back across an sea, when I was startled by something hit the ground. I gazed down to see a rock dove on its back, spatchcocked, and convulsing.
The fall occurred just as schoolchildren were filing out from the local primary school and so within moments a small chorus of youngsters had formed, flanked by their mums and dads. This group of confused faces peered down at the bird, uncertain what to think or act. The kids were more decisive: “Papa, she needs a vet, can we call an emergency service?” I took off my jacket, crouched down and gently lifted the pigeon up into it. “No problem, sweet, the nice man will take care of her!” exclaimed one mum with a sigh of relief. I had become 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 ramrod straight, with the bird tucked safely inside the coat.
Unbeknownst to me that my on-the-spot decision to rescue Belinda (the name I chose for my new friend) would direct me to a network of local residents devoting significant amounts of their time to provide not only rescue services for feral pigeons but scans, convalescence, and even “pigeon physio”.
I located a cardboard box for Belinda, lined 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 make brief contact.
Those moments of common confusion punctuated my frantic search for what to do after that. I called friends for suggestions and one recommended trying Facebook, where, to my astonishment, I stumbled upon a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to join.
Boasting thousands of members, the group operates on an anarchic model: someone in Manchester finds an hurt pigeon, a urgent post is made, then a comment section “assessment” follows. If the bird is judged in need of an X-ray, someone with a connection to a clinic can organize it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabilitator” will offer to care for the bird.
Volunteers each have their own highly developed specialities, whether it’s setting broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their significant, collective effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on kindness.
Belinda was rapidly assessed with a neurological issue, likely a head injury, and matched with a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a program of careful physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to plummet. I took up the role of bird taxi once more, boarding the tram across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could get the attention she deserved.
After discovering this underground pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my home town. I question any of the places I had lived in while away could claim anything remotely similar. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one plummet from the sky into the playground of my secondary school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the courage to pick it up and take it to safety.
The friend in question has since died – one of four friends to pass away 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 difficult.
Pigeons have a tradition as “companion” animals, especially in the north of England. Laborers started to care for the birds because they gave them solace and an excuse to stare at the open air between long shifts of underground work. During the Depression, workers on the dole also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “despair”.
Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as unintelligent, unclean or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a vet, who told me: “if you bring that here, leave it in the lot and we’ll put it down.”
That? Not this bird. Although unlikely to ever soar , she has embraced her newly earthbound life with success in a volunteer’s extra room. Each satisfied coo, often prompted by her favourite treat, frozen peas, feels like a demonstration in resilience and resilience – and I am always appreciative to her for unveiling for me a different facet to the city I was familiar with.
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