Watchfield - 15.05.10

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


Well folks here we are again, this week (15th May) will see the Wiltshire federation at Exeter (105mile) and the BBO at Vire (183mile), looks like the club will miss the Vire race and just send to the Exeter as some members have a race with the CSCFC this week so fingers crossed for those who send.

Its now Sunday evening and all the birds are separated again and resting now after their tiring excursions this weekend, some of these will no doubt require resting for next weeks race as the later ones simply will not have recovered in time. The racing last weekend resulted in us having a cock night out from the channel and also a yearling cock night out from the Exeter race and us losing three birds from the team and one which has took a knock, we dropped two yearlings from the channel race and a yearling hen which had previously knocked her wing before the season in the hard Exeter race, so not a great race day.

The birds had a good rest on Monday and Tuesday morning, with exercise commencing on Tuesday afternoon, and then back to twice per day on Wednesday & Thursday and the team exercised well, the two cocks who nighted out will both be rested this week as they are just not quite right. One of our older cocks “14” has started to act the part this week continually clapping around away from the main bunch and always higher than the pack, so we shall be watching for him this week, time will tell. He has been a handy bird over the last couple of seasons but has showed no effort to date this season, thats why i pulled him out of our NFC team as he has just simply not performed to date.

This week i started to knock up the darkness youngsters and started to get them to fly, these are a younger team than the others an only moved in April and have had limited exercise therefore become very lazy, so it has been out with the old brush and football this week, a couple have been moved on due to bad habits picked up during this lazy time but the others are in the majority starting to conform now.

Have had a good look at the non-darkness youngsters early this week and they are looking a good bunch, the cocks have really come out of themselves of late, so much so that i am considering pulling 8 of these from the team and housing in a separate section and putting them on the widowhood system, but time will tell.

Race day and a nice start to the day around here, the birds were liberated at 09.15hrs, as time went on it some turned into a beautiful morning clearing quickly and the sun burning through, the wind forecast has been all over the place this week and it turned out to be North West over here but later upon talking to some of the members there was East in it over by them, so i pencilled in an ETA of 2hrs 10mins for this one.

We were at the loft in plenty of time as i cleaned out all the youngsters and other sections prior to the eta, we started to scan the skies from around 11.15hrs, Clare spotted our first arrival appear above us not sure were he came from as we tend to look over the trees to the front and if they appear from any other direction we miss them, after a quick lap of honour he was down and in, to be clocked at 11.27.21, we didn’t wait long before our next arrival dropped at 11.28.29, we them had a gap of just over 4 minutes and then they were umbling in fromn every direction with ten dropping over the next 2mins and they returned well leaving just 2 adrift after half an hour. We later got a call from Darren Baker over in Swindon to say that one of the missing two was at his loft and he would let go later when he had his channel birds back (he was on the loft when we got back from the club, thanks Darren), why this little later bred cock had decided to go loft visiting we will never know but thats pigeons for you..

At the club that night, returns on the whole were very good, onto the club result with our Wiltshire Fed race from Exeter it was a great win for Ken Thorpe who took 1st with a very good 2yr old Dark Staf Van Reet widowhood cock on 1417.4, this cock won 2nd & 3rd federation last year so heres hoping for one better now i know talking to Ken on Friday night he fancied this cock and he didn’t let him down well done Ken, in 2nd & 4th was M/M C Aldridge & Son with a 3yr old Cheq Pd winner of Seaton earlier this year and 2yr old Blue Pd widowhood cocks recording 1406.3 & 1404.0 these two both previous big winners. In 3rd was ourselves with a 2yr old Blue widowhood cock recording 1406.0, i was pleased with this as he was promising last year but then took a knock which put him out for the rest of that season. George Seagroatt was 5th with a yearling on 1401.6 and Ken returned with 6th on 1398.4

Wiltshire & District SR Federation – 01.05.10 from Exeter, the result was, 1st Newman & Sevier, Salisbury with a 2yr old cheq pd hen on 1669.3, 2nd was D Day, Grateley with a yearling wf cock on 1659.0, 3rd was K Thorpe, Watchfield with a 5yr old cock on 1655.5, 4th was J Fulford, Grateley with a 2yr old cock on 1654.8, 5th was M/M M & C Brown, Watchfield with a yearling cock on 1654.1, 6th & 8th was C Elliott, Watchfield with a 2yr old & 3yr old cock on 1649.3 & 1648.4, 7th was C Bartlett, Salisbury with a 4yr old cock on 1648.7, 9th was M/M R&S Titcombe, Watchfield with a 4yr old cock on 1646.9 and 10th was S Bunn, Ram Alley with a yearling cock on 1646.3.

Oxford Central (Wilts Fed) from Keith Shipperley, racing from Exeter on 15th May, the result was, 1st Reg Clarke with a Mealy Belg lier market special cock who topped the BBO fed last year on 1394, 2nd was M/M R Ward with one of his Keith Arnold Staf Van Reets on 1385, taking 3rd was Ted Irving with a Hofken on 1379 and 4th was Sherman & Wells on 1370.

Late result from Ferndale (Wilts Fed) for Falaise 8th May, saw M/M S A Webb gain 1st & 2nd club timing in a 4yr old blue wf delbar hen & a 5yr old cheq delbar x Kirkpatrick cock with velocities 1018 & 942 both these birds being raced natural and both being big winners over the years on the north raod, 3rd was R & P Hapgood with a 5yr old blue busscheart cock on natural a previous winner of 1st Fraserburgh in 2009

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

good read Mark
well done Mark & Clare, well done all

smilinassassin & vader ...

thanks mark, as always enjoyable read........glad to see the birds are coming along well for you.

well done mark as usual very good reading mate