Our aircraft battled through layer after layer of freezing rain on its descent into the city. A growing unease filled me during the journey, only deepening as I shuffled through the arrivals hall. I resented coming back to the town where I had been raised, after living on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a an eternity.
After a couple of days, I headed out to get a my hair cut. My attention was far away, focused on an ocean, when I heard something hit the ground. I gazed down to see a rock dove on its back, spatchcocked, and convulsing.
The impact occurred just as children were emerging from the local elementary school and so within moments a small chorus of youngsters had assembled, accompanied by their parents. This ring of confused faces stared down at the creature, unsure what to do or say. The kids were more certain: “Dad, she needs help, can we call an emergency service?” I took off my jacket, crouched down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “Don’t worry, sweet, the kind man will help her!” remarked one parent with a audible relief. I had turned into the ambulance for this pigeon that had just landed abruptly, against its will, as I had a short time earlier.
I trudged home, arms stiffly extended, with the bird nestled inside the garment.
I had no idea that my impromptu decision to medivac the bird (the name I bestowed upon my new friend) would guide me to a community of Mancunians devoting significant amounts of effort to provide not only ambulances for feral pigeons but X-rays, convalescence, and even “avian physiotherapy”.
I retrieved a small container for Belinda, prepared it with an old T-shirt, and put her inside. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d open the box just long enough for us to make brief contact.
Those moments of common confusion interrupted my desperate search for what to do after that. I contacted friends for advice and one proposed trying social media, where, to my astonishment, I found a local pigeon rescue group, and put in a request to participate.
Boasting thousands of members, the group follows an decentralized method: someone in Manchester discovers an injured pigeon, a pleading post is created, then a comment section “triage” ensues. If the bird is deemed in need of an examination, someone with a connection to a clinic can arrange it; if it needs physio, a “carer” will step forward to foster the bird.
Rehabbers each have their own highly developed skills, whether it’s mending broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their significant, collective effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by kindness.
Belinda was rapidly assessed with brain trauma, likely a blow to the head, and assigned to a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a regimen of careful physio. We never learned exactly what made her to plummet. I assumed the role of pigeon ambulance once more, taking the tram across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could receive the care she required.
After stumbling across this underground pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much better about being back in my city. I doubt any of the places I had resided in while away could have anything remotely similar. It also occurred to me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one fall from the sky into the schoolyard of my high school. Again, children gathered around the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the nerve to pick it up and take it to a safe place.
The friend in question has since been lost – one of a number of companions to lose their lives in the years before my departure from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made coming back so difficult.
Pigeons have a history as “companion” animals, especially in the certain regions. Workers started to care for the birds because they gave them comfort and an excuse to look up at the sky between long shifts of darkness below. During the hard times, workers on the unemployment also found a distraction in pigeons, but keeping them was seen as a sign of “social malaise”.
Nowadays, pigeons are often disparaged as simple, unclean or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a veterinarian, who told me: “if you bring that here, leave that in the parking lot and we’ll put it down.”
It? Not her. Although improbable to ever take to the skies , she has taken to her newly earthbound life with success in a volunteer’s spare bedroom. Each satisfied coo, often caused by her favourite treat, frozen peas, feels like a demonstration in adaptability and resilience – and I am eternally thankful to her for revealing to me a different facet to the city I believed I understood.
