'If it was a kitten or a dog people would immediately jump to action'

On the steps of Castle Square sits a woman dubbed Sheffield's pigeon lady.

Vicky Prest volunteers for Sheffield Stringfoot Pigeons and Bird Rescue, and devotes a huge part of her life to helping injured birds.

The group operates through Facebook and can receive up to 10 callouts an hour.

If someone were to find an injured bird in Sheffield, they could post the location in the Facebook group, and be met by Vicky, or another volunteer, equipped with supplies to rescue it.

While stopping to talk she confidently picks up a pigeon to examine its feet. She then begins to snip with nail scissors to treat what is called stringfoot.

"Because of litter, they end up with things like hair around their feet," she says.

"As a result, they can lose their feet, they can lose their toes, they can lose entire limbs, it's quite brutal."

Prest runs "Stringfoot Sundays" where volunteers learn how to safely capture, de-string and then release pigeons.

Her other main responsibility in the group is to rescue and transport injured birds.

She says: "I really enjoy the adrenaline of going out and rescuing birds that are in distress."

Asked about the most thrilling rescue mission she's been involved in, she replies: "I had one where I was down a canal rescuing a duck called Trevor. He had something called angel wing.

"I had to get my ladder, I had to go down into a canal with no steps, balancing on a pile of rubbish. Then, I was wading through canal water, which was absolutely freezing, for a good nearly three hours.

"Eventually, I managed to get Trevor and he now lives in a sanctuary."

Susan Joyce works for the National Pigeon Advocacy Association and talks about pigeons with the passion of a politician.

"These are birds that have been domesticated and loved by humans until about 150 years ago, when we didn't want them anymore, so we just abandoned them," she says.

"We've got a problem where there are millions of birds that we bred, [but] we now refuse to look after."

She goes on to say that people refer to them as rodents, because they eat the things that we drop.

Vicky echoes this sentiment and says her group "suffer from an awful lot of abuse from the general public" when string-footing or rescuing pigeons.

"Where do they go, do they just suffer? Do they just die?" she asks.

"If that was a kitten or a dog, people would be immediately jumping to action, however, because it's what they consider flying rats, people don't really care as much."

Susan says she believes there's a changing attitude among some people towards pigeons and a growing need, especially for young people, to have something to look after.

"We feel disenfranchised, we feel like our governments aren't looking after us, so we feel a bond with these animals that are on the streets, that are being ignored and not being looked after," she suggests.

She adds that people who contact her association to advocate for pigeons are often "on the fringes of society" themselves.

"There's a real connection with the animal, that feeling like they're disregarded and not worthy of care," she says

Vicky agrees, adding: "I would say that I am on the fringes of society and I find solidarity in the pigeons. They're kind of in the background, the same as many of us can feel at times."

But, is this friendship and adoration of the animal a one-way street or is there mutual affection and recognition?

"They absolutely do [recognise me]," Vicky says.

"When I came down here, I didn't even sit down, they just were instantly 'oh that's a pigeon lady, she's gonna come over and feed us'."

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