An Event That Altered Me: A Bird Plummeted From Above – and She Led to a Covert Underground Salvation Group

T forced its way through layer after layer of freezing rain as it landed into the city. A growing unease settled over me during the journey, growing stronger as I shuffled through the airport. I resented coming back to the place where I had grown up, 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 my hair cut. My thoughts was far away, lingering over an sea, when I became aware of something strike the sidewalk. I looked down to see a pigeon on its back, sprawled, and twitching.

The fall took place just as kids were filing out from the local primary school and so within a short time a little crowd of children had formed, flanked by their parents. This circle of bemused faces looked down at the pigeon, unsure what to do or say. The kids were more definitive: “Dad, she needs a vet, can we call an ambulance?” I removed my jacket, bent down and picked up the pigeon up into it. “It’s okay, love, the kind man will look after her!” remarked one mother with a sigh of relief. I had been transformed into the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just come down hard, unintentionally, as I had a couple of days prior.

I walked slowly home, arms stiffly extended, with the bird tucked safely inside the garment.

Unbeknownst to me that my on-the-spot decision to rescue Belinda (the name I gave my patient) would lead me to a community of local residents sacrificing significant amounts of their time to provide not only transport for feral pigeons but X-rays, convalescence, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

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 awkwardly lock eyes.

Those moments of common perplexity marked my desperate search for what to do after that. I called friends for advice and one proposed trying Facebook, where, to my amazement, I discovered a local pigeon rescue group, and submitted a request to participate.

A Community Effort

Boasting thousands of members, the group has an anarchic system: someone in Manchester discovers an injured pigeon, a urgent post is published, then a comment section “evaluation” ensues. If the bird is judged in need of an scan, someone with a veterinary contact can organize it; if it needs physio, a “carer” will offer to look after the bird.

Carers each have their own highly developed skills, whether it’s repairing broken wings or cleaning wounds. Their significant, collective effort for the pigeons of the city is powered solely by kindness.

Belinda was quickly diagnosed with brain trauma, likely a blow to the head, and assigned to a rehabber who would give medication and a program of patient physio. We never learned exactly what made her to drop from above. I took up the role of avian courier once more, boarding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a shoebox on my lap so she could obtain the attention she needed.

A New Perspective

After stumbling across this underground pigeon “support system”, I began to feel much better about being back in my city. I am skeptical any of the places I had called home while away could claim anything even close. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been connected to a pigeon aid mission: almost 20 years earlier I’d seen one fall from the sky into the grounds of my old school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the nerve to scoop it up and take it to safety.

The individual has since died – one of a number of companions to lose their lives in the years before my exit from Manchester. I understood that this had been a major reason of what had made coming back so difficult.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a history as “companion” animals, especially in the north of England. Laborers started to keep the birds because they gave them comfort and an opportunity to look up at the open air between long shifts of subterranean gloom. During the economic downturn, workers on the assistance also found comfort in pigeons, but keeping them was considered a sign of “social malaise”.

Nowadays, pigeons are often dismissed as simple, diseased or a general nuisance. Before finding the rehab group, I had spoken to a vet, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave it in the parking lot and we’ll euthanise it.”

The bird? Not our Belinda. Although improbable to ever soar , she has taken to her newly grounded life with success in a volunteer’s extra room. Each happy coo, often prompted by her favourite food, peas, feels like a example in perseverance and strength – and I am eternally thankful to her for unveiling for me a new dimension to the city I was familiar with.