An Event That Changed My Life: A Dove Plummeted From Above – and She Led to a Secret Undercover Salvation Group

The plane forced its way through wall after wall of icy precipitation during the approach into its destination. A growing unease settled over me during the journey, growing stronger as I shuffled through the terminal. I resented returning to the town where I had been raised, after residing on the opposite end of the world for what had felt like a an age.

After a couple of days, I ventured out to get a trim. My thoughts was distant, lingering over an ocean, when I was startled by something strike the sidewalk. I looked down to see a pigeon on its side, splayed out, and twitching.

The impact took place just as schoolchildren were filing out from the local elementary school and so within a short time a small chorus of little ones had assembled, accompanied by their mums and dads. This circle of confused faces peered down at the bird, not knowing what to think or act. The kids were more definitive: “Daddy, she needs hospital, can we call an ambulance?” I slipped off my jacket, bent down and scooped the pigeon into it. “No problem, love, the kind man will help her!” said one parent with a sigh of relief. I had become the rescue vehicle for this pigeon that had just fallen suddenly, involuntarily, as I had a couple of days prior.

I made my way home, arms ramrod straight, with the bird nestled inside the coat.

Little did I know that my spontaneous decision to aid the bird (the name I chose for my avian patient) would guide me to a web of Mancunians devoting significant amounts of time to provide not only transport for feral pigeons but diagnostic imaging, recovery care, and even “bird rehabilitation”.

I retrieved a cardboard box for Belinda, lined it with an old piece of cloth, and put her inside. Every half hour or so, I’d lift the lid just long enough for us to awkwardly lock eyes.

Those periods of common perplexity interrupted my desperate search for what to do from there. I phoned friends for suggestions and one proposed trying online groups, where, to my astonishment, I stumbled upon a local pigeon rescue group, and submitted a request to join.

An Anarchic Model

With a large membership, the group has an decentralized model: someone in Manchester stumbles across an hurt pigeon, a heartfelt post is made, then a comment section “evaluation” takes place. If the bird is considered in need of an scan, someone with a connection to a clinic can get it one; if it needs rehabilitation, a “rehabilitator” will step forward to look after the bird.

Volunteers each have their own carefully cultivated specialities, whether it’s mending broken wings or dressing wounds. Their tremendous, combined effort for the pigeons of the city depends completely on goodwill.

Belinda was quickly assessed with a neurological issue, likely a blow to the head, and matched with a rehabber who would provide pain relief and a regimen of careful physio. We never learned exactly what caused her to plummet. I assumed the role of bird taxi once more, boarding the light rail across the city with Belinda in a box on my lap so she could get the care she needed.

A New Perspective

After finding this secret pigeon “health service”, I began to feel much differently about being back in my city. I question any of the places I had resided in while away could boast anything even close. It also struck me that this was not the first time I’d been involved in a pigeon recovery: almost 20 years earlier I’d observed one plummet from the sky into the schoolyard of my old school. Again, children circled the bird, but only one – my best friend at the time – had the nerve to pick it up and take it to safety.

The friend in question has since been lost – one of four friends to pass away in the years before my leaving from Manchester. I came to see that this had been a significant factor of what had made returning home so difficult.

Pigeons as Companions

Pigeons have a tradition as “therapy” animals, especially in the North. Laborers started to keep the birds because they gave them comfort and an reason to look up at the sky between long shifts of underground work. 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, diseased or a annoyance. Before finding the rehab group, I had contacted a animal doctor, who told me: “if you bring it here, leave that in the car park and we’ll euthanise it.”

That? Not her. Although improbable to ever soar , she has taken to her newly earthbound life with aplomb in a volunteer’s extra room. Each satisfied sound, often prompted by her favourite food, frozen peas, feels like a example in resilience and fortitude – and I am always appreciative to her for showing me another side to the city I believed I understood.