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The plane battled through wall after wall of freezing rain as it landed into the city. A sense of dread settled over me during the flight, growing stronger as I walked through the arrivals hall. I was unhappy about having to be the place where I had grown up, after making a home on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a few days, I went out to get a my hair cut. My mind was distant, lingering over an sea, when I heard something smack into the sidewalk. I gazed down to see a rock dove on its back, splayed out, and convulsing.

The crash happened just as children were filing out from the local elementary school and so within moments a little crowd of children had assembled, accompanied by their parents. This circle of bemused faces peered down at the pigeon, not knowing what to say or do. The kids were more decisive: “Dad, she needs a vet, can we call an emergency service?” I slipped off my jacket, knelt down and picked up the pigeon inside it. “Don’t worry, sweet, the kind man will help her!” exclaimed one mother with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, against its will, as I had a couple of days prior.

I trudged home, arms held out, with the bird tucked safely inside the garment.

Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to medivac the bird (the name I bestowed upon my new friend) would lead me to a web of city dwellers giving up significant amounts of their time to provide not only rescue services for street birds but scans, respite care, and even “avian physiotherapy”.

I retrieved a shoebox 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 shared confusion punctuated my hectic search for what to do from there. I contacted friends for guidance and one proposed trying social media, where, to my surprise, I stumbled upon a bird rehabilitation group, and put in a request to become a member.

A Grassroots Network

With a large membership, the group operates on an decentralized model: someone in Manchester finds an hurt pigeon, a pleading post is created, then a comment section “triage” takes place. If the bird is judged in need of an examination, someone with a connection to a clinic can arrange it; if it needs therapy, a “carer” will step forward to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own highly developed expertise, whether it’s setting broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their tremendous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on volunteerism.

Belinda was rapidly diagnosed with brain trauma, likely a concussion, and matched with a rehabber who would give pain relief and a course of gentle physio. We never found out exactly what caused her to fall from the sky. I resumed 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 required.

An Unexpected Lesson

After finding this underground pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my city. I question any of the places I had lived in while away could boast anything even close. It also dawned on 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 grounds of my high school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the courage to scoop it up and take it to safety.

The aforementioned friend has since died – one of a number of companions to die 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 painful.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a tradition as “therapy” animals, especially in the north of England. Workers started to raise the birds because they gave them comfort 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 considered a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as simple, diseased or a pest. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a animal doctor, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave that in the lot and we’ll euthanise it.”

The bird? Not her. Although improbable to ever fly again , she has adapted to her newly earthbound life with success in a volunteer’s extra room. Each satisfied coo, often caused by her favourite snack, vegetables, feels like a lesson in resilience and resilience – and I am forever grateful to her for showing me a different facet to the city I believed I understood.