I’M at the junction of Lothian Road and Earl Grey Street, at around 3pm on a hot, busy Friday. I’ve just come from a wedding dress fitting and am on my way to buy a book I’ve been waiting for. There is a thump, and then a tremendous white gull flapping in the forward lane, one wing half frozen, the other desperately trying to cheat the arithmetic of flight. It can only be seconds, but watching it flailing on the hot macadam feels like an age.

Nobody moves, so I take off my jacket, international code for “Step aside citizens, I know what I’m doing’’. I don’t. I’ve tended many injured things over the years and was a card-carrying member of the Young Ornithologists’ Club, but it’s hardly a qualification. Enough to tell a kittiwake from a herring gull, but light on the first aid this situation called for.

What exactly am I going to do? I’ve seen dogs smaller than this bird. In the moments I wait for a lull in traffic I consider the possibility that I might have to wring its neck. I’ve seen people do it on telly; swift, decisive mercy killing. Not something you Google first, or call your fiance to talk you through. I’ll likely end up with an angry bird, a criminal conviction, and rightfully losing an eye for trying.

A second car skiffs the bird before I can get to it. A man hops off his bike and also attempts to scoop it up. Together we deliver it to the side of the road to assess the situation. He’s wearing a jacket and gloves, I’m noticeably bare. He has the definite advantage for handling an angry animal with dirty scissors on its face.

This is my fourth bird this year. There was the perennial failed fledgling from the sparrows in the eaves, and the pigeon our dachshund Gilbert killed on a whim and then buried the pulped remains of down the sofa. Then there was the dawdling pheasant that made its explosive acquaintance with the Volvo. A few birds in a menagerie worth spanning three decades, and I can remember most of them. The scabby pigeon with the broken wing, brought home to die in a shoebox in my grandparents’ hallway. The many passerines prised from the cat’s mouth or paws. The magpie I pulled out of the bin outside Halfords. I used to think of myself as some sort of Francis of Assisi figure to whom animals flocked. Reflecting on my track record, and the number of mice I’ve delivered into our snake’s gaping jaw, I think the grim reaper is a better fit.

We’re joined by three school-children. Together we make a plan. Sertac (we have time enough for names and pleasantries) holds the thing, confidently and generously despite the biting. The children fetch antiseptic wipes for the now bleeding adults. The adults who thought it would be smart to handle something that dines in gutters and garbage bags. I call the SPCA. Together we wait, around 45 minutes all in. One of the children buys a loaf of bread and tries to feed the bird. It snatches the torn-off hunk with renewed rage. A last supper of Warburton’s white bread. Who could blame it?

The bird spends most of the time flailing. It reminds me of a colicky newborn. Liverish, unreasonable, impervious to gentle coos and hushed reassurances. The bird does not want our help, but how else will the people in the street know that we are good people who stop?

I swaddle the thing as best I can. There isn’t any time to check injury, which later turns out to be a grotesquely crushed wing, almost entirely severed. I imagine the gull will undergo a swift amputation, recovering to a full life in a bird sanctuary, with heated mats, a pond to bob on and endless invertebrates to nibble. I know that’s not how the story ends. Injured city birds don’t get retirement flats. Not even people do.

When something is this scared, this doomed, the best you can hope for is to bring some calm, so we try. I take a snip to the hand. The helpful man takes one in the face. We chat amiably about native wildlife, favourite pets and what animals have gnawed on us at one time or another. One of the boys tells us he was bitten in the face by a snake in Sudan as a baby. Another tells us a conspiracy theory about a neighbour who murders tortoises. The bird continues to lunge with gusto. If you have to suffer the indignity of being hit twice, hastily wrapped in a coat before being collected and disposed of, you might as well put on a show. Good for you, I think. Take out the whole damn town if you can.

A few people glance our way, attempting to figure out how this unlikely troupe find themselves holding a seabird, bleeding, and acting like it’s the most natural thing to be doing on a Friday afternoon.

None of us knows exactly what to do, but we feel compelled to try. How human. Being hit a third time might have done the trick, but who could stand there watching it suffer, waiting for the wheels of an unsuspecting driver? I’m glad of the company, of the impulse to help.

It’s our fault really. People did this. We overfish, we build on coastal habitats and fill our streets and bins with things that feed them well. Then we blame them for roosting on roofs and crapping on windows. Birds don’t know how to cross roads or train lines or have the good sense to stay out of our way. The least we can do is try and lessen the horror something else feels at our collective hand, even for a moment.

The bird calms down as if accepting that this is how things are. It looks noble, prettier than I’ve given their like credit for. The pale, glossy eye, the corn-coloured beak, its gunmetal feathers turning pink. The SPCA ranger arrives, gently inspects the wrecked wing before packing him into the box with a terracotta dish towel. The kids ask about rehabilitation, and I know from her answer she hasn’t the heart to tell them what happens next. I think of the Seamus Heaney poem about drowning kittens, and how age and enough life to see death hardens the heart. Who wants a life on the ground if you’ve always had the heavens?

We spend a moment together before going our separate ways. The kids with their stories, Sertac with his cut face and I with my blood-stained jacket. In the end, we couldn’t do much beyond trying and failing to help something smaller than us in need. However futile, kindness is never wasted. If nothing else, it reminds you to be gentle. You never know when you might depend on a stranger.