Parkinson. LJ
How times change in some cases but not in others, a couple of prime examples being the Internet and bad races. I first started the Elimar web site in late 1999 with the help of Steve & Carl Spinks from Blackpool, since those days the Internet has come a long way. In the early days, we would sit there for what seemed like a dog’s age for the next movement of the cursor but now it is almost instantaneous. Also in those early days, the vast majority of pigeon fanciers were not into computer’s and therefore very few looked at the site, having said that many still aren’t but they have children and grandchildren who help out. In the first year, I think we had about 200 hits max but the number’s steadily increased and in 2005 things started to increase much faster with 75,000 hits in that year and then they took off on a big scale. The increase was no doubt down to the number of articles that started to appear on the site. The numbers in 2016 were 11.2 million in the year so fanciers are now fully into the World Wide Web for their pigeon information. I have to admit I still like to open the BHW every Thursday unless of course there is a delay with the post, to see what is going on in the pigeon world. What it does do with the site is allow me to look back and see what was going on many years ago at the touch of a button.
For no particular reason, I was recently looking back at when the articles first started to go on the site in numbers and came across the following, from I think 2005.
“Yes, once again we have a disastrous weekend for the pigeons with many missing, what's worse is that many have reported top pigeons failing to return. The weekend of the 14th May will go down as a bad weekends racing. Our local fed had a mixed race with the majority having good returns but in other parts of the country it was not so good. I don't think that there is a lot that can be done about it because when the strong east wind sets in the pigeons are going to try and avoid it as much as they can. The Saturday was the worst day with Sunday seeing the winds drop but even then, they were struggling and some even held over until Monday when the rain from the north headed south right into their path. I was talking to one fancier who was watching birds being liberated and he said that they would not clear even though you could see for miles. What the alternative is I have no idea unless we have liberators who know the area and seek advice before birds are liberated, I know it's more cost but would it be worth it.”
I then looked further down the notes for 1985 and found another piece on bad races.
“Just as we were on our way out the door I had a phone call from one of the best fanciers in the country Bobby Walton who was saying about the losses that fanciers have been experiencing this year. As you all know this is a subject that has arisen most weeks and for various reasons is not getting any better. The young birds are suffering in much the same way as the old birds and we are in the infancy of their season so losses are the last thing fanciers are looking for. I was telling Bob that many of the long-distance fanciers look after their future stock and don't send them week in week out down the road. I was talking to young Craig on this same subject and he was telling me that the good performers of this year in the longer races were not raced as young birds. When Craig was telling me, I did add that most of the best pigeons that we raced across the channel were not raced as young birds. Education does not mean racing youngsters to the coast; you can educate them without endless lengthy road trips. I spoke to John Allbutt about the race of the 23rd July and he was still 11 missing and after two days was not expecting them to turn up and there are others who have even more missing, not what the race team ordered. This was the weekend when some brought their pigeons back home because from the Midlands up the weather was very overcast and more importantly for anyone watching there were no birds flying freely in the sky. When the wild birds are not lighting the sky up we all know that if we liberate racing pigeons we are in for a bad race and it was brave of the organisations that brought them back to do so, those pigeons live to race another day.
As I said last week the fanciers around the Mediterranean have been suffering with heavy losses since they first stated racing pigeons which means that we are now experiencing similar problems to them. What is the solution, I doubt if fanciers want to know, or they don't when the meetings come along to decide the race programme for the following year, this is the time of the year when fanciers forget about last year’s mistakes and do the same again? To help the young birds their needs to be a distinctive break between the old and young and then send the hens for the first few races to help the youngsters get a solid line. We need to change the way we do things, times are changing in every way. I do congratulate the Mid Cheshire fed delegates on a move in this direction by having a week’s break but only time will tell if it works. The one reservation that I have is that while others have started and had bad races will this affect the birdage for the Mid Cheshire. The answer to that is probably yes because some fanciers from the Cheshire area have lost quite a few pigeons so will be splitting their teams which means less birdage for the Mid Cheshire Fed, a shame but that's the way it goes. Having said that if the Mid Cheshire had started at the same time then they may also have had the same problem if the race controller Dave Healey had been put in a position to let them go. Talking about the race controller it is noticeable that Dave and convoyer Ron Highfield have done a good job this year and must be congratulated; let’s hope that they stay together for a few years to come. There are changes on the way with the Mid Cheshire and I am aware that Ron is talking about not taking the job on next year, I like others think that he should change his mind and continue do an excellent job”
After this year we can see that things have not changed even with more technology on the weather front. We would think that with the advancement of information sources this would not happen but it does and I cannot see that changing because the line of flight information is endless not so where else can we go to avoid such races. One thing is for certain and that is the race controllers job is as hard as it was all those years ago, one mistake and the fanciers want their blood but it doesn’t last for long. I must add that there is an improvement because we do not have as many bad races as we used to do so that is not a bad thing. Can we get a perfect season, I suppose we can and probably had had but it is the bad ones that stick in our minds, they are the ones that appear to last forever? I remember we had snow at Cheltenham one year in May and the birds were brought back. I also remember “Iron Lung” winning and I think that was also a Cheltenham race when only 5 made it on the day from less than 90mls. The year I started racing was 1969 and I recall there was only one on the day out of Nantes 412mls and if we race from that kind of distance today we expect to fill the clock. Having said that I cannot remember what kind of race it was because I had not entered. There was the race in the Mid 70’s when we were at a short race and the birds were liberated to arrive after 5pm because in those days most pigeon men worked for a living but not today. Anyway, they were held over and liberated I think on the Monday and I was at Fodens. There were a lot of pigeon men there in those days and quite a few knocked off work to see to their pigeons arrive home and clock them in. As I left work there was a lot of fog around and I was thinking that there would not be much home today. As I sat there having a brew I heard wings flapping and a mealy hen dropped through the mist, it turned out to be a decent race after all. In the early 80’s we had a blue Dordin cock who had been 45th and about 170th open in consecutive years. I was looking for a third top 200 result for a merit but that did not happen we had a real bad race and I am not 100% but I think they were struggling to fill the first 500 on the result. You had to be above 220ypm and I was told we need to clock before 2pm on the Thursday to make that vel. The blue cock arrived at just after 3pm so we did not bother only to be told he would have made the result, when I say result in the National I am always referring to the first 500 in the open.
There are countries around the world who suffer far more than we do when it comes to bad races. We have been in Malta and seen a few when as a pigeon fancier you are looking up into the sky thinking that we could have a good race today but that is not always the case. Racing to such a small Ireland is not all that easy, 1 degree either way and they miss the Island altogether and they end up on the North African coast. Does that constitute a bad race, I don’t think so it is more a case of taking the easy option and going with the wind instead of fighting for a good line. We know how bad it is here for the pigeons when we have these heat waves so countries around the Mediterranean are going to struggle but they do race over what is the winter and they have had some bad races. I suppose when fanciers from around the world read such notes they are always thinking, “We have the same problem with bad races” We don’t have the monopoly of bad races here in the UK or even Europe they will happen wherever pigeons are being raced, we are never going to have it perfect all the time. Pigeon fanciers will always get up and keep going, as they have done for how many years and I don’t think that is going to change now. Yes, they are most annoying at the time but they will keep happening, how frequent is another matter but they we will have bad races from time to time. The race controllers rely on people along the line of flight, even they don’t read the weather as they should in their own area at times.
Les J Parkinson. 11 Rushton Drive, Middlewich, Cheshire, CW10 0NJ.
01606836036 Mobile 07871701585.
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