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The plane forced its way through layer after layer of sleet as it landed into the city. A sinking feeling settled over me during the flight, intensifying as I walked through the airport. I was unhappy about returning to the town where I had grown up, after residing on the far side of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a short while, I went out to get a my hair cut. My thoughts was far away, focused on an ocean, when I became aware of something strike the sidewalk. I looked down to see a pigeon on its back, splayed out, and convulsing.

The impact happened just as children were emerging from the local primary school and so within a short time a small chorus of youngsters had assembled, surrounded by their mothers and fathers. This ring of bemused faces looked down at the creature, uncertain what to do or say. The kids were more definitive: “Dad, she needs a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I took off my anorak, bent down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “No problem, dear, the kind man will help her!” exclaimed one parent with a sigh of relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, involuntarily, as I had a few days before.

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

Unbeknownst to me that my impromptu decision to aid Belinda (the name I chose for my new friend) would direct me to a network of city dwellers sacrificing significant amounts of time to provide not only rescue services for city pigeons but X-rays, respite care, and even “pigeon physio”.

I located a cardboard box for Belinda, placed inside it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to share a momentary glance.

Those periods of common perplexity marked my hectic search for what to do from there. I phoned friends for advice and one proposed trying Facebook, where, to my surprise, I stumbled upon a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and put in a request to participate.

A Grassroots Network

With a large membership, the group operates on an anarchic model: someone in Manchester stumbles across an injured pigeon, a pleading post is made, then a comment section “evaluation” follows. If the bird is considered in need of an examination, someone with a vet link can arrange it; if it needs therapy, a “rehabilitator” will volunteer to look after the bird.

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

Belinda was quickly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a concussion, and matched with a rehabber who would give pain relief and a program of gentle physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to drop from above. I resumed the role of bird taxi once more, taking the light rail across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the attention she required.

A New Perspective

After discovering this underground pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my city. I question any of the places I had called home while away could boast anything comparable. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one drop from the sky into the schoolyard of my secondary school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the courage to scoop it up and take it to safety.

The friend in question has since died – one of a number of companions to lose their lives in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made the return so difficult.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “companion” animals, especially in the north of England. Laborers started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an excuse to look up at the sky between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the dole also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “idleness”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as simple, unclean or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a vet, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave it in the lot and we’ll end its life.”

It? Not her. Although improbable to ever soar , she has taken to her newly land-based life with success in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each contented coo, often caused by her favourite treat, frozen peas, feels like a example in adaptability and fortitude – and I am eternally thankful to her for revealing to me another side to the city I thought I knew.