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Our aircraft battled through layer after layer of icy precipitation during the approach into its destination. A sinking feeling settled over me during the flight, growing stronger as I shuffled through the terminal. I felt bitter over having to be the place where I had spent my youth, after living on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a lifetime.

After a few days, I ventured out to get a my hair cut. My thoughts was miles away, lingering over an vast expanse of water, when I became aware of something smack into the ground. I glanced down to see a rock dove on its back, sprawled, and twitching.

The fall occurred just as kids were filing out from the local elementary school and so within moments a group of youngsters had assembled, accompanied by their mothers and fathers. This group of confused faces peered down at the creature, unsure what to think or act. The kids were more certain: “Daddy, she needs a vet, can we call an emergency service?” I slipped off my coat, bent down and picked up the pigeon inside it. “Don’t worry, sweet, the nice man will look after her!” exclaimed one mum with a sense of relief. I had become the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just come down hard, against its will, as I had a couple of days prior.

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

Little did I know that my on-the-spot decision to aid my feathered charge (the name I bestowed upon my patient) would lead me to a community of local residents sacrificing significant amounts of their time to provide not only transport for city pigeons but scans, respite care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I found a shoebox for Belinda, lined it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those moments of common bewilderment marked my hectic search for what to do next. I contacted friends for guidance and one proposed trying online groups, where, to my amazement, I discovered a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to join.

A Grassroots Network

Over 3,000-strong, the group has an anarchic method: someone in Manchester discovers an injured pigeon, a heartfelt post is published, then a comment section “triage” takes place. If the bird is deemed in need of an X-ray, someone with a connection to a clinic can get it one; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabilitator” will volunteer to look after the bird.

Volunteers each have their own carefully cultivated specialities, whether it’s repairing broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their tremendous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by goodwill.

Belinda was quickly diagnosed with neurological problems, likely a blow to the head, and placed with a rehabber who would provide comfort and a program of patient physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to plummet. I resumed the role of avian courier once more, boarding the tram across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the care she required.

Rediscovering Home

After stumbling across this underground pigeon “health service”, 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 even close. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been part of a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one fall from the sky into the schoolyard of my secondary school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the courage to scoop it up and take it to a safe place.

The aforementioned friend has since been lost – one of a number of companions to pass away in the years before my departure from Manchester. I understood that this had been a significant factor of what had made coming back so hard.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a tradition as “emotional support” animals, especially in the north of England. Laborers started to raise the birds because they gave them company and an excuse to stare at the sky between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the hard times, workers on the assistance also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “social malaise”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as stupid, dirty or a pest. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a animal doctor, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave it in the parking lot and we’ll end its life.”

That? Not this bird. Although improbable to ever soar , she has embraced her newly grounded life with aplomb in a volunteer’s extra room. Each happy coo, often caused by her favourite food, peas, feels like a demonstration in adaptability and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for unveiling for me a new dimension to the city I believed I understood.