T pushed through layer after layer of sleet as it landed into Manchester. A growing unease filled me during the journey, only deepening as I walked through the airport. I was unhappy about having to be the place where I had been raised, after making a home on the far side of the world for what had felt like a an age.
After a short while, I went out to get a trim. My thoughts was miles away, focused on an vast expanse of water, when I heard something smack into the pavement. I looked down to see a rock dove on its wings, sprawled, and twitching.
The fall occurred just as schoolchildren were emerging from the local grade school and so within minutes a small chorus of youngsters had assembled, flanked by their parents. This ring of confused faces looked down at the bird, uncertain what to do or say. The kids were more decisive: “Daddy, she needs help, can we call an emergency service?” I took off my jacket, knelt down and scooped the pigeon into it. “It’s okay, dear, the nice man will help her!” exclaimed one mum with a sigh of relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, involuntarily, as I had a short time earlier.
I made my way home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird curled up inside the garment.
Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to rescue Belinda (the name I bestowed upon my patient) would lead me to a community of Mancunians giving up significant amounts of effort to provide not only transport for street birds but diagnostic imaging, convalescence, and even “pigeon physio”.
I retrieved a shoebox for Belinda, placed inside it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to make brief contact.
Those moments of common confusion interrupted my hectic search for what to do from there. I contacted friends for advice and one suggested trying social media, where, to my surprise, I found a bird rehabilitation group, and submitted a request to join.
Over 3,000-strong, the group operates on an organic model: someone in Manchester stumbles across an hurt pigeon, a pleading post is made, then a comment section “assessment” follows. If the bird is judged in need of an examination, someone with a veterinary contact can get it one; if it needs physio, a “rehabilitator” will volunteer to look after the bird.
Volunteers each have their own carefully cultivated specialities, whether it’s mending broken wings or treating wounds. Their significant, collective effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on kindness.
Belinda was promptly diagnosed with brain trauma, likely a concussion, and assigned to a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a course of gentle physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to plummet. I took up the role of pigeon ambulance once more, boarding the tram across the city with Belinda in a container on my lap so she could obtain the care she needed.
After discovering this underground pigeon “NHS”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my hometown. I doubt any of the places I had called home while away could have anything remotely similar. 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 observed one plummet from the sky into the playground of my secondary school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the courage to scoop it up and take it to safety.
The individual has since passed away – one of several friends to pass away in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I understood that this had been a major reason of what had made the return so painful.
Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the North. Laborers started to keep the birds because they gave them solace and an reason to gaze up at the sky between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the Depression, workers on the assistance also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.
Nowadays, pigeons are often written off as unintelligent, diseased or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had called a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring the bird here, leave that in the car park and we’ll euthanise it.”
It? Not her. Although unlikely to ever soar , she has taken to her newly land-based life with grace in a volunteer’s extra room. Each happy sound, often caused by her favourite treat, vegetables, feels like a example in perseverance and resilience – and I am always appreciative to her for showing me a different facet to the city I believed I understood.
A seasoned casino analyst with over a decade of experience in gaming strategies and industry trends.
