Watchfield - 03.04.10

Watchfield In The Vale Flying Club with MB
*Remember there are No Secrets from a Bottle, just Hardwork, Dedication & Determination*


Well folks we at the end of March and have recently completed the annual 3way test of the club clocks, we decided to bring all the clocks home to save keep running upto the club for 3 nights (boy, this is a thankless task), the majority of these will be 2nd clocks as most members are using ETS, as we have 9 members with Bricon, 3 with Unikon and 2 with Tipes ETS, so i will discuss with the other lads in the club that the members who have chosen not to use ETS to see if they can use some of the spare T3’s (i have 2 which can be used), saves time on setting & checking nights, also cost of rolls, ink etc and also i have some of the T3 inserts which we can put in the T3’s being used to enable these members to time their first couple of birds without thimbles saving them a bit of time.

We have had some nice weather over the last few weeks ideal for the early trainers, my plans were to start training early April with a view of slowly bringing the team into condition, we will send the first race basically as a trainer to get them back in the swing of mass liberations as the team will be on eggs and we have found that this doesn’t tend to stress them as much, then flick them onto widowhood for the races on the 17th April 2010. No doubt the early club/fed races will be dominated by the older birds and those lucky enough to have the experienced birds in their teams and with us having a majority of yearlings i know deep down that it will take them a few weeks to get used to the system once on widowhood but i am certainly not worried as my main aims this year are the NFC races and with the first race being 22nd May i certainly have time on my side, i will be looking closely at the federation short channel races on the 1st and 8th May for my selection candidates.

Dont get me wrong i will be expecting the birds to put the effort in and get amongst the prizes during the sprint races as i know that they have the capabilities to do this, but deep down you have to be realistic, know your limitations and to get a team of mainly yearlings to accept widowhood and adopt to the system will definitely take a couple of weeks to settle into the swing, as all our yearlings only had 4 x yb races and were then were stopped for this year.

As stated in a recent article we along with some friends from the pigeons.forumotion.com website have put together a syndicate to compete in the “Somerset Oneloft race” organised by Terry & Julie Williams and earlier this month we took our team of 4 youngsters to the loft. We started training the other day (took them to Wilton windmill on way towards Tidworth) and after such a long awaited start, unbelievably it appeared the hawk was waiting for us!!.

I firstly let the hens go and they slowly got their bearings and cleared, then i let the cocks go. The cocks were circling when i saw the hens racing back, damn i thought!! Then i spotted 2 lower than the others and these started heading towards the cocks, then as they crossed in front of me i realised this was one of the hens with a sparrowhawk on its tail, I couldn’t believe it, i just stood and watched. This poor little hen was shifting and headed right into the bunch of cocks just as the hawk struck...bang, puff of feathers and she fell out of the sky. At this split second the cocks obviously realised what was happening and burst like a firework, the hawk (must have like tunnel vision) spun in mid air and headed off after one of the cocks. It was like an excocet missile as i stood watching “feeling sick”, as my fella went right so did the hawk, he tippled downwards so did the hawk, upwards same effect ( you would have thought they was tied together). Unbelievably i stood shellshocked and watched this for nearly 2 minutes as my little dark cock headed out of view, the others had gone every direction imaginable some even heading off to the trees.

Back at home, they were understandably split up and i was 6 adrift including my good dark cock who got 5th, 7th and 11th section positions from four National events last season, i couldn’t believe it...... Luckily he returned early evening, jumpy and missing some tail feathers, phew!!. At the end of the day we were 5 missing, two returned early next day with broken wing flights and tails, another late afternoon with a damaged wing and another 3 days later who cant even fly upto its nestbox now.

So have decided that i will give them a couple more training spins now from different direction and then just send them to the races, its not ideal but its just not worth the hassle taking them training only to get smashed up by the hawks. Yes i am a little disillusioned at the time of writing after putting all the efforts in during the Winter months and getting the birds ready for the season ahead only to have it shattered by a BOP. Dont get me wrong the birds are certainly fit enough and look well in themselves with exercise around home but ideally i would have liked at least 10 to 15 short training spins before the first race to try and install/refresh the breaking points that i had in them as youngsters, but the way things are at the moment i have to reduce the odds and at least in races if a batch gets hit they are not all yours.

Well thats the last report now before racing commences, so i would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone the very best of racing and may your dreams come true. Well thats it for now so come on all you winners if you want your club to get the regognition you/your birds deserve, elect someone to either email or phone me by latest Sunday evening following the race with details of your first four positions with breeds and some information and i will include you in the write ups.

Dont forget the WILTSHIRE FEDERATION “Super Noms” for 2010, come on have a go - Support your Federation, take on and beat the best!!, Q: Are you up to the selection challenge in what would be a level playing field, bird v bird - best v best, Only £1 per entry per week (unlimited – but i cant see anyone nominating more that 5), payable to your club secretary, Federation to take only 10% of income, rest to be paid as prizes. Imagine!!, we have approx 150 members in the federation, if everyone took up the challenge and entered just 2 birds per week, we could be paying out some serious money, ie £270 each week, the federation would generate £30 per week, which would give you the chance to fly for £5,940 over the course of the season and £660 to the federation funds. Full Separate Result, detailing first 20 Fed Nom’s recorded each week, prizemoney Split - upto £50 (1 Prize), £51 to £100 (2 Prizes), over £100 (3 Prizes)This is your federation!!, So let’s make it - The envy of the South. Also £100 to the “Fed Nom”Combined Average Winner (All Races).

Well that’s it for this week, try hard, work harder, be happy and good returns.
Any news/views to Mark Brown
Email - mb1973@hotmail.co.uk
Tel - 07593 279 375

very interesting reading as always mark, look forward to the next one............