T battled through layer after layer of icy precipitation during the approach into the city. A sense of dread had accompanied me during the flight, only deepening as I made my way through the arrivals hall. I resented coming back to the city where I had spent my youth, after living on the other side of the world for what had felt like a an age.
After a couple of days, I went out to get a haircut. My attention was miles away, back across an ocean, when I was startled by something hit the ground. I looked down to see a pigeon on its back, sprawled, and convulsing.
The fall happened just as children were streaming out from the local grade school and so within moments a little crowd of little ones had assembled, accompanied by their parents. This ring of confused faces looked down at the creature, uncertain what to think or act. The kids were more certain: “Dad, she needs a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I slipped off my coat, crouched down and picked up the pigeon inside it. “No problem, love, the nice man will look after her!” exclaimed one mum with a sigh of relief. I had become the emergency transport for this pigeon that had just come down hard, involuntarily, as I had a short time earlier.
I walked slowly home, arms stiffly extended, with the bird tucked safely inside the jacket.
Unbeknownst to me that my spontaneous decision to medivac my feathered charge (the name I chose for my new friend) would direct me to a web of city dwellers giving up significant amounts of effort to provide not only ambulances for feral pigeons but diagnostic imaging, recovery care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.
I located a small container for Belinda, lined it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.
Those moments of common confusion marked my hectic search for what to do from there. I phoned friends for advice and one proposed trying Facebook, where, to my amazement, I found a bird rehabilitation group, and sent a request to participate.
Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an decentralized method: someone in Manchester stumbles across an hurt pigeon, a heartfelt post is created, then a comment section “triage” follows. If the bird is deemed in need of an X-ray, someone with a vet link can get it one; if it needs therapy, a “rehabber” will volunteer to care for the bird.
Carers each have their own finely honed specialities, whether it’s setting broken wings or treating wounds. Their significant, collective effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on goodwill.
Belinda was promptly assessed with neurological problems, likely a concussion, and matched with a rehabber who would give comfort and a course of careful physio. We never discovered exactly what caused her to plummet. I resumed the role of bird taxi once more, taking the streetcar across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could obtain the care she deserved.
After discovering this underground pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much more positive about being back in my city. I doubt any of the places I had resided in while away could claim anything remotely similar. It also occurred to me that this was not the first time I’d been part of a pigeon rescue: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one drop from the sky into the playground of my secondary school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my friend at the time – had the courage to rescue it and take it to a safe place.
The individual has since passed away – one of several friends to pass away in the years before my departure from Manchester. I realised that this had been a significant factor of what had made returning home so difficult.
Pigeons have a tradition as “emotional support” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to keep the birds because they gave them comfort and an opportunity to stare at the heavens between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the Depression, workers on the dole also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was viewed as a sign of “despair”.
Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as stupid, unclean or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a vet, who told me: “if you bring that here, leave that in the lot and we’ll euthanise it.”
That? Not this bird. Although not expected to ever soar , she has adapted to her newly land-based life with aplomb in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each happy coo, often elicited by her favourite snack, peas, feels like a example in perseverance and strength – and I am always appreciative to her for showing me a new dimension to the city I thought I knew.
