Thames North & Eastern Counties Flying Club
The tenth of January saw the first meeting for the season of 2017. This meeting would decide among other things, the 2017 race program. The race program is probably if not one of the most important decision making elements for any club or Federation, as it reinforces both future organisation finances as well as satisfaction amongst the membership. There are good and bad race points on all routes, which vary according to where an organisation is situated. Problems can occur where there are many liberations taking place in the area with participants going off too many destinations. Local weather conditions can cause havoc, particularly on and around costal liberations. Unsuitable race points tend to affect young bird racing to a greater degree, more so on the young birds first time in the basket. For the young birds an organisation must realise, that a baby lost is not just 50p for next week its 50p for the rest of the season, it affects next season’s yearlings and so on. Disregarding the financial loss to the organisation, then there’s the heart break of the fancier, when his young bird team gets decimated.
The best race points
For the most, the best race points to support your organisation are usually those that have been tried and tested over a long period of time, with race points only being changed when one has failed to give the right conclusion.
Delegation of members
The Thames North has a delegation of members to sort out any change in the race program one of the most important parts of pigeon racing that supports both members and future finances of the club. The Thames North program is a program that supports both sprint racing and training for the national and international racing. Hopefully it may be of interest to the fancier to take a general look at how this happens in Belgium.
The structure of racing in Belgium
Can we learn anything from the methods that are generally employed by the Belgium Fanciers? There is no doubt that the progress of pigeon racing in Belgium could be described as being one off, if not the most progressive in the world. The proof of this is perhaps in the the fact that the majority of the origins of the most formidable racing pigeons in Europe and here in the U.K., have their origins in Belgium. Now what other proof is there to be found, that the methods employed by the Belgium fancier have helped mould the unbelievably fast pigeon we see racing today. Firstly let’s take their way of setting out their race program.
Club racing in Belgium
Club racing in Belgium is the type of racing that in the past and present has been enjoyed by the majority; it is flown on a Sunday usually competing from two trusted race points, with an average distance off around 100 miles and 140 miles. The birds entered in these races are most often entered into a lucrative pool system with good financial returns enjoyed by the best or most successful fanciers. The pool system employed is far more complicated than most of the systems we find here in the U.K. For instance naming the first five pigeons in order of how they are timed, remembering that these birds are often sprinting in their thousands. Then you also have the ace pigeon, this pigeon is awarded its merit over several races on its position, plus the amount of birds that are competing in each race.
Purchasing new stock
The Belgian fanciers generally like to purchase their new aquisitions for the breeding loft around the current years ace pigeons which guarantee cross bred pigeons bred from the best to best, unlike most the fanciers, here in the U.K. that look on a name as an entity to inbreed to. Training in Belgium, many top Belgium fanciers use club racing as training for their National race birds.
National racing in Belgium
National races and international races in Belgium are aimed at being flown on a Saturday. Now many outstanding Belgium fanciers that have been my privilege to interview in the past for U.K. magazines have told me that in preparing their birds for National racing. They would divide the team into groups each group would be allotted shall we say four races, with the final race being the main race that they were prepared for. In this way the birds are never burnt out or suffer great losses if a certain race is a disaster. Then of course we have the K.B.D.B. champion pigeons of Belgium, birds that are merited first sprint K.B.D.B. first middle distance K.B.D.B. and first long distance K.B.D.B. Again the performances of these birds are calculated in the same way as the ace pigeons as mentioned early using the Co efficient system. Once again the Belgium fancier tends to buy their new introductions for the stock loft in and around these K.B.D.B. champions.
In the past many U.K. fanciers have made the mistake of bringing in a family of Belgium pigeons winning everything in sight, then inbreeding them so as to maintain the strain as they see it and suffering the consequences of too much inbreeding with the family soon becoming of no use.
Studying results and origin
If the U.K. fancier reads the results produced by our weekly pigeon racing magazines, who almost always give the breeding of the winners they would soon be aware that inbreeding is not the norm in the production of champion pigeons.
Hawks & Falcons another topic discussed when looking at the race program
It was also interesting that the hawk and falcon problem was discussed in deciding the race program, certainly a problem that is not without merit. In recent years due mainly to restrictions in farming fertilisers and pesticides the hawk and falcon population has risen considerable. It would be true to say that in studying the sparrow hawk our major aggressor in pigeon taking, we would find that this hawk is very territorial and tends to keep off each other’s territory. On occasions one can witness fiercely fought sky battles when a sparrow hawk has wrongly entered another’s territory. This hawk is prolific in number, which leads to the fact that they can be found everywhere. If there are any good points to this hawk it is that it generally does not hunt like a peregrine falcon, which takes its prey almost always fast and on the wing. The sparrow hawk likes to take the stragglers a nice fat lost young bird, usually looking for a drink, perched or a favourite of this hawk is to drive its prey into the ground.
Steps to take to avoid confrontations with sparrow hawks
Make sure your young birds are well trained, that they know how to drink in the basket and are sent in a healthy condition.
The peregrine Falcon
The other threat of course is that of the peregrine falcon. Falcons unlike hawks, do not sit in trees. The peregrine likes to perch on a ledge often on a cliff face, high on a roof, top of a building where they can observe the surrounding area. The high perch occupied by the peregrine is known as an eyrie, they are extremely territorial birds of prey tending to drive off their descendents on reaching puberty with the adults often hunting in pairs. In the resent past the peregrine was more common in Scotland Ireland and Wales usually around steep rocky cliffs, but since their revival due to our farming practises changing. The peregrine falcon has become much more widely spread moving into towns setting up their eyrie on universities power stations cathedrals in fact they can be found anywhere where there is suitable accommodation.
Steps to take to avoid confrontations with the peregrine falcon
Try not to liberate near an eyrie so as to keep vulnerable pigeons i.e. stragglers etc away from the peregrines territorial. The R.S.P.B. memberships have been kind enough to give us most of these locations.
Hawk strikes around the loft
Don’t let young birds learning to fly sit around the top of your lofts, particularly winter youngsters that need to learn the loft during late winter and early spring. Late winter early spring is a time when you are more likely to get a sparrow hawk strike as there are not yet many young wild birds about, making your out of season young birds a very big attraction. Once your local sparrow hawk has struck she will be back, not every day as she likes her prey to gain confidence again. The answer is to keep your young birds confined to a wire netting flight placed on your landing board so the young birds have easy access to the trap and will trap quickly when called. They can be placed in this flight each day for around half an hour, keep your eye on them then after they have had their half an hour looking round, open the trap and feed them in. After around two and a half weeks let them on the top without the flight, they are soon in the sky, you also have the advantage that as soon as you call them they are straight in. The local sparrow hawk can often be seen over the top of the teams of birds training around the lofts, but she never attacks, leading to one of my firm beliefs that a sparrow hawk seldom attacks a team of birds. We are not far from Bradwell power station where there have been a pair of resident peregrine falcons that have been breeding there for several seasons concluding that some of the offspring must have come this way. For two or three years now I have watched a peregrine pass high over our teams of trainers but have never attacked.
There is no doubt, that there is a problem with predators, although it is far less of a problem than shall we say today’s climate change. You are far more likely to lose pigeons in abnormal weather conditions than you will ever lose to winged predators. But never the less we still need to be on top of the problem, If one looks at what normally occurs then a lot of hawk and falcon confrontations can be avoided at home and at the race point.
E.J.Sains
