Watchfield 25.06.10

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 (26th June) will see the Wiltshire federation at Niort (358mile) as part of the Wessex combine and the BBO racing from Honiton (82mile).

On Monday we had the birds out for exercise am & pm, actually took the youngsters training on the Monday evening and all returned ok, Tuesday morning and i was up early and had the old birds out whilst i basketed the youngsters and took them for a training spin, through Wilton over the tops, let them go at 0550hrs. When i got home there was nothing back so i had to leave for work, later that evening we had only 8 birds back from the 30 we let go, so obviously the BOP were out early this day, very disillusioned again with training down here as the hawk situation is beyond belief.

Wednesday morning and a couple more had worked in, had the old birds out again and fed them as we were basketing tonight for the Niort race. Just had a look at the long range forecast for the weekend and its showing North to North Easterly winds in france and south over in the uk so should be a good race, our birds are looking well.

We decided to enter 10 birds as our team for the Niort race which comprises of 8 x yearlings, 1 x 2yr old and 1 x 3yr old. Most of the other members were sending older birds as Niort in the past as always thrown up some very tricky races. I have separated our candidates for the races on the 10th July 2010 which will see 2 go to Tarbes with the NFC, 6 go to Bergerac with the combine and 6 go to Fougeres with the Help the Heroes open race, these will hopefully go down on eggs and be sent sitting 5 to 7 days which are our next target races we will be aiming for following this weekends Niort race.

We did get a few more youngsters back and collected a few including Wantage, Marlborough and Melksham areas, the birds were out am & pm on Thurday and Friday morning, on the way home from work i got a phone call reporting another of our youngsters which was over in Chepstow some 75miles away from us. I agreed to collect first thing Saturday morning at 0715hrs as the guy (Roger) and his family were going on holiday and setting off at 0800hrs. At basketing on Friday night we decided to send all our candidates for the 10th July races to this one which was a good turnout with Rob “Tonto” Habgood and Keith Hambridge sending from Ferndale so it was a good night with plenty of laughs and wind-ups going on.

Race day now and i was up and about early as i had to leave for Chepstow at 0550hrs, the long range forecast was spot on, with Northerly winds in France and Southerly over here, with it being forecast to be very warm. News soon started to come through that the Niort birds had liberated at 06165hrs and Honiton birds were away at 0700hrs, so it was a quick calculation and i pencilled in ETA’s of 0830 for Honiton and approx 1430hrs for Niort.

I was just leaving Chepstow so had to get a move on, anyhow i got back home just on 0830hrs and Clare had already connected the ETS and got the loft ready, so it was a quick sort and get ready. We didn’t wait long before our blue cock came in from over the back to be recorded at 08.40.47 with three more at 08.42 and another three at 08.43 so all in all the land birds returned well. The sun started to burn through and it got hotter and hotter, with temperatures hitting the high 20’s by lunchtime.

It was soon time to start to get ready for the expectations from Niort, with eta of 1430hrs soon coming round, our first arrival came bang on from the front bang on line and was soon down to be recorded at 14.45.59, he was our yearling “15” tired and extremely thirsty, followed at 14.55 by “14” and another yearling “46” at 15.08 and then that was it, nothing else for over two hours. This race was quick turning out into an extremely tough race and there would no doubt be major losses from this race. We did get other arrivals 1730, 1825, 1830 and 1832 so upon going to the club we had 7 out of the 10 home.

At the club that night, a lot of birds were missing and some members had no arrivals at all, so we were extremely lucky in that respect to have 7 from 10 even though 4 were late at least they were there to fly another day, anyhow onto the club result with our Wiltshire Fed race from Niort and it was a good win for ourselves M/M M&C Brown taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd with the winning bird being our yearling blue gaby vandenabeele cock “15” recording 1234.4, 2nd was our 3yr old blue gaby vandenabeele cock recording 1211.8 and 3rd was our yearling blue gaby vandenabeele cock on 1181.6. 4th club was George Seagroatt with a 5yr old blue cock on 1154.4

On now to the club result with our BBO Fed race from Honiton it was a good win for Ken Thorpe with his very good, consistent and a previous big winner for the loft 2yr old Staf Van Reet cock recording 1463.3, 2nd was ourselves M/M M&C Brown with a yearling blue gaby vandenabeele cock on 1436.7, 3rd was M/M C Aldridge & Son with another big winner, a 2yr old Robert Van Soest Janssen cock on 1431.1 and 4th was M/M R &S Titcombe with a 4 yr old blue cock on 1427.8

WILTSHIRE FEDERATION, Carentan 12.06.10, result was - 1st S Hughes, Ferndale with a yearling cheq hen on 1101.500, 2nd, 3rd & 10th was ourselves M/M M Brown, Watchfield with a yearling cheq cock on 1101.431, followed by a year;ing blue cock on 1101.354 and a 3yr cheq hen on 1071.392. 4th was R Pegler & Son, Salisbury with a yearling blue cock on 1082.3. 5th was D Day, Salisbury with a yearling cheq cock on 1082.134. 6th was A Parsons, Salisbury with a yearling cheq hen on 1075.574. 7th was E Smith & D Baker, Watchfield with a 2yr old slatey cock on 1074.164. 8th & 9th was M/M N Smith, Salisbury with two yearling blue cocks on 1072.820 & 1072.733

Well that’s it for this week, try hard, work harder, be happy and good returns.

Well Done Mark & Clare, another fantastic
days results , also another good write-up
Well Done All ...

ma & pa (assassin & vader)

well done mark & clare, top flying once again.......great results. and as usual very interesting reading, look forward to next weeks.

thanks mark.