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Our aircraft forced its way through successive sheets of icy precipitation on its descent into the city. A growing unease filled me during the trip, intensifying as I walked through the arrivals hall. I resented having to be the town where I had spent my youth, 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 thoughts was distant, back across an sea, when I heard something smack into the pavement. I gazed down to see a bird on its side, spatchcocked, and trembling.

The impact took place just as schoolchildren were filing out from the local grade school and so within minutes a little crowd of little ones had assembled, surrounded by their parents. This circle of bemused faces peered down at the pigeon, not knowing what to think or act. The kids were more decisive: “Dad, she needs help, can we call an animal ambulance?” I took off my coat, crouched down and picked up the pigeon inside it. “No problem, sweet, the gentleman will take care of her!” remarked one mum with a audible relief. I had become the ambulance for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, unintentionally, as I had a few days before.

I walked slowly home, arms held out, with the bird curled up inside the coat.

I had no idea that my on-the-spot decision to rescue Belinda (the name I chose for my patient) would guide me to a community of Mancunians sacrificing significant amounts of time to provide not only transport for feral pigeons but scans, recovery care, and even “pigeon physio”.

I found a shoebox for Belinda, prepared it with an old shirt, and put her inside. Every short while, I’d peek inside just long enough for us to make brief contact.

Those moments of shared perplexity marked my hectic search for what to do after that. I called friends for guidance and one suggested trying social media, where, to my surprise, I discovered a Manchester Pigeon Rehab group, and put in a request to participate.

A Grassroots Network

With a large membership, the group follows an anarchic system: someone in Manchester stumbles across an ailing pigeon, a heartfelt post is made, then a comment section “triage” ensues. If the bird is considered in need of an X-ray, someone with a veterinary contact can organize it; if it needs rehabilitation, a “carer” will offer to look after the bird.

Volunteers each have their own finely honed skills, whether it’s setting broken wings or treating wounds. Their significant, combined effort for the pigeons of the city runs entirely on kindness.

Belinda was rapidly assessed with neurological problems, likely a head injury, and matched with a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a program of patient physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to fall from the sky. I assumed the role of bird taxi once more, riding the tram across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could receive the treatment she deserved.

Rediscovering Home

After finding this secret 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 even close. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d witnessed one plummet from the sky into the schoolyard of my high school. Again, children surrounded the bird, but only one – my closest friend at the time – had the nerve to scoop it up and take it to safety.

The individual has since been lost – one of four friends to lose their lives in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I understood that this had been a significant factor of what had made returning home so difficult.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a longstanding role as “emotional support” animals, especially in the North. Workers started to raise the birds because they gave them solace and an opportunity to look up at the open air between long shifts of underground work. During the Depression, workers on the dole also found solace in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “despair”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as unintelligent, dirty or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a vet, who told me: “if you bring that here, leave that in the lot and we’ll end its life.”

That? Not her. Although not expected to ever fly again , she has taken to her newly land-based life with grace in a volunteer’s extra room. Each happy sound, often elicited by her favourite treat, frozen peas, feels like a lesson in resilience and resilience – and I am eternally thankful to her for unveiling for me a new dimension to the city I was familiar with.