'Rescuing a pigeon showed me another side of the city'

When writer Jack Chadwick was walking home from a haircut in Manchester around a year ago, he was startled by something that dropped out of the sky.

"It was the time of day when the kids were all leaving school," said the 29-year-old, who had recently returned to his home town after living on the other side of the world.

"Suddenly there was just this movement out of the corner of my eye and besides me, in the middle of this crowd of kids, there was this pigeon on her back.

"I'd seen injured animals before, but she made a right show of it."

Chadwick scooped up the pigeon, which he called Belinda, with his coat, took her home and put her in a shoebox, lined it with an old t-shirt.

"I spent a frantic few hours calling mates, calling my family, trying to work out what to do about this little pigeon," he said.

A number of wildlife rescue charities told Chadwick about Manchester Pigeon Rehab.

The group is a network of volunteers in Greater Manchester who rescue and take pigeons in to provide around-the-clock care until they are well enough to be released or rehomed.

"I was shocked to find something like this but I'm not surprised that I found it in Manchester," he said.

"After doing a little bit of research since meeting Belinda for the first time, I found that there's only a handful of cities in the world where this happens.

"I don't think there's anywhere where it happens quite as fastidiously as in Manchester.

"It just made me feel really proud."

The group also run stringfoot sessions, where they remove hair, thread and other debris that has become trapped around the pigeon's feet and can lead to their toes falling off as well as offering a transporter service to take pigeons to "rehabbers" for care.

During World War Two pigeons played a vital role in delivering messages when radio communications were disrupted.

Many were awarded the Dickin Medal for bravery.

Chadwick wrote about the experience in the Guardian, where he said he would be "forever grateful to [Belinda] for showing me another side to the city I thought I knew".

The group's work has also been shared on TikTok, resulting in members going from 3,000 to nearly 9,000 in the past year on Facebook.

Emily Hanley, who is now caring for Belinda as a pigeon rehabber, said the group had been a source of friendship for many.

"We are such a close-knit group of people and I think we've got friends for life," she said.

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