Watchfield 10.07.10

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 (10th July) will see the Wiltshire federation at Bergerac (466mile), the BBO racing from Wincanton (47mile), Help The Heroes Open National racing from Fougeres (216mile) and the NFC racing from Tarbes (566mile).

On Sunday we had the birds out for exercise am & pm and all had a bath, out again on Monday. Young bird training as been a disaster again lately with us suffering drastic losses due to constant hawk strikes which has seen me once again put the training baskets away as it is just not worth the hassle and heartache everytime they go into the basket, they get scattered by the hawks. So the youngsters will have to teach themselves the ropes from here on in and will just get raced each week.

As stated previously I have done some serious planning for our representatives for this weeks races, so we had entered 8 to Bergerac, 2 to Tarbes, 4 to Fougeres and 6 to Wincanton. Race day now and i was up and about early as normal, when the news soom came through that the birds were away and we had a long day ahead of us, it was unfortunate that the NFC had heldover due to being an International race and bad weather heading into Belgium.

The Wincanton birds were due first and we soon had our first arrival spinning around the loft to be clocked at 08.47.43, with 2 others at 08.48.44 & 08.48.46 and the other three were in the loft soon after with the last dropping at 0853hrs, so that proved the loft was still holding form hence the quick and pleasing returns. Our first arrival is a yearling Blue cock bred by our family friend Charlie Ingham back home in St.Helens and is out of his fed winning channel cock, Thanks Charlie and not a white flight lol, although this was his first showing of the season so far it was pleasing and Charlie will be pleased if he manages to card at the club.

Next up was the Fougeres birds which although i expected a quick race, they seemed to struggle and a lot of fanciers failing to record arrivals, our first came spinning in at 1047hrs which i was pleased with as this yearling blue hen as carded well this year and is half sister to our NFC winner, but the other three were hours behind and all retuned within 30mins of each other so had obviously all drifted across somewhere they shouldn’t have.

Next up was the Bergerac race, now this is the first time we have entered this race since being down here and in the weeks leading up to this race we have had many discussions at the club about why there are never many about on the winning day and returns are always few and far between in all organisations. Well the early birds would be expected into the area around the 12hr mark for this race and with liberation at 0545hrs so we decided to go to the club and strike off the Help the Heroes race and the Wincanton birds so we could get back and await the possible arrivals from Bergerac.

We got back from the club just before 5pm and i put the kettle on, made a cuppa and went out to the loft. I was looking at the few youngsters we have left now after three severe hawk attacks and wondering what to do, when i spotted a bird come thumping from the front over the trees to spin round, down and in......and yes it was our good 5000 hen from Bergerac, i was over the moon and had a smile from ear to ear, don’t know why but this arrival made me feel really chuffed as there had been such a build up for the last couple of weeks at the club that there are never many about from Bergerac and here we was with our no 1 choice, fed nom and combine nom in the clock, yippee i felt more chuffed at this than i did with the national don’t know why but i just felt like this was the pinical of the season.

At the club that night, there was only 2 birds home in the club and unbelievably they were both ours, 1st was our good 3yr old cheq Bertus Timmer hen who has won before and carded a few times this season and 2nd was our 2 yr old Gaby Vandenabeele cock who dropped at 1920hrs. So it was up early next morning as we still had 6 away and i don’t like birds putting the effort in to return to a locked up loft, so i was out at 0500hrs to open the loft up, then went back indoors. I walked upto the loft at 0730hrs to see if we had had any early arrivals as it wasn’t the best of mornings but it was not to be, i had a brief thought to myself as i was surprised that nothing else had come through. Just as i turned round i spotted an arrival spinning round and dropping in and was really pleased to see it was our good yearling cheq Koopman cock to be timed at 0731hrs, we had other arrivals throughout the day and all other club members had timed during the morning so we went back up to the club for a strike at 1600hrs and we were lucky enough to record 3rd club with our yearling on 797ypm and John Barker timing his good channel cock to take 4th also on 797ypm.

When things settled we worked out the club result for our BBO Fed race from Wincanton and it was another good weekend for us as we took 1st, 2nd & 3rd with our three yearling cocks also finishing 3rd, 7th & 8th federation which was a real bonus, club sprint kings M/M C Aldridge & Son took the next six club positions with there outstanding team of birds with all 6 being in the federation result starting with 9th proving a real good result for our members.

We checked the early times for the Help the Heroes and were really pleased to end up 3rd Section 18th open Fougeres with our yearling hen. Unfvortunately we didn’t time any arrivals from the Tarbes NFC but were really pleased to see our friend Paul Kendall time both of his entries to take 1st & 7th open NFC Grand National, well done Paul.

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