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Our aircraft pushed through successive sheets of sleet as it landed into its destination. A sinking feeling filled me during the journey, intensifying as I made my way through the terminal. I was unhappy about coming back to the town where I had grown up, after residing on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an eternity.

After a few days, I ventured out to get a haircut. My mind was miles away, back across an vast expanse of water, when I became aware of something hit the ground. I glanced down to see a bird on its side, splayed out, and twitching.

The crash occurred just as kids were streaming out from the local grade school and so within minutes a group of youngsters had gathered, surrounded by their parents. This group of puzzled faces looked down at the creature, not knowing what to do or say. The kids were more certain: “Dad, she needs a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I took off my anorak, crouched down and picked up the pigeon inside it. “Don’t worry, dear, the gentleman will help her!” exclaimed one parent with a audible relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, involuntarily, as I had a couple of days prior.

I walked slowly home, arms held out, with the bird tucked safely inside the coat.

Little did I know that my spontaneous decision to aid my feathered charge (the name I bestowed upon my patient) would lead me to a web of city dwellers devoting significant amounts of time to provide not only transport for city pigeons but diagnostic imaging, convalescence, and even “pigeon physio”.

I located a small container for Belinda, placed inside it with an old T-shirt, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those periods of mutual bewilderment interrupted my frantic search for what to do from there. I called friends for guidance and one suggested trying Facebook, where, to my amazement, I found a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and put in a request to become a member.

An Anarchic Model

Over 3,000-strong, the group operates on an anarchic system: someone in Manchester discovers an injured pigeon, a urgent post is created, then a comment section “triage” follows. If the bird is considered in need of an X-ray, someone with a veterinary contact can get it one; if it needs physio, a “carer” will offer to care for the bird.

Volunteers each have their own carefully cultivated skills, whether it’s setting broken wings or treating wounds. Their significant, cooperative effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on kindness.

Belinda was rapidly assessed with brain trauma, likely a head injury, and matched with a rehabber who would give comfort and a course of patient physio. We never found out exactly what made her to fall from the sky. I took up the role of pigeon ambulance once more, taking the light rail across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could obtain the attention she required.

Rediscovering Home

After stumbling across this secret pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my city. I doubt any of the places I had called home while away could boast anything even close. It also occurred to me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one drop from the sky into the playground of my high school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the gall to rescue it and take it to safety.

The individual has since died – one of several friends to pass away in the years before my departure from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made returning home so difficult.

Feathered Support

Pigeons have a tradition as “companion” animals, especially in the north of England. Workers started to raise the birds because they gave them solace and an opportunity to stare at the sky between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the assistance also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “social malaise”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as stupid, unclean or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a vet, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave it in the car park and we’ll put it down.”

It? Not her. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has taken to her newly land-based life with aplomb in a volunteer’s extra room. Each happy call, often prompted by her favourite treat, peas, feels like a lesson in adaptability and fortitude – and I am eternally thankful to her for revealing to me a different facet to the city I thought I knew.