Watchfield - 15.08.10

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 (14th August) and we are moving onto Yelverton this week with the Wiltshire federation (131mile) to us.

The birds were left in on Sunday morning but were out for a fly on Sunday afternoon, as said previously some of the young cocks are paired now and driving hard so exercise didn’t last long.

Monday evening and we had the birds out, same Tuesday & Wednesday evening although Tuesday they got caught in some of the heaviest showers i have witnessed for a while so i just filled the bath and left them to it

Thursday we had them out for exercise in the evening and they flew well, all fed Friday morning with no exercise. Marking went well on Friday night with various conversations regarding the weather forecast for tomorrow and the prospects looking like a holdover. Saturday opened up as forecast with periods of heavy rain which persisted most of the morning.

So no lib on Saturday, race day now and Sunday opened up awful, damp dark and very cold. Somewhat surprised when the call came through that they were away at 8am, the wind was strong North East so prospects were bleak. My dad was racing from Salisbury and upon speaking to him they had had news to ring back later as the weather was not good at Salisbury, this was worrying as we are approx 30 miles north of Salisbury and our birds would have to pass through or over Salisbury on there way to us.

So a mixed guesstimate on the ETA today as they were in for a struggle no matter what the weather throws at them, i expected possibilities of early arrivals after 3hrs (approx 1200ypm) and speaking to Tonto he said 3hrs 30 mins at best with heavy losses

So the loft was made ready for arrivals and with cup of tea in hand i started to scan the skies from 11am well it was a long long wait and started to get a little concerned when half past came and went, we were watching the buzzards mooching around the skies when our first arrival appeared, don’t know were she came from and she dropped to be walked in and time at 11.33.30, this was the same little blue hen who won the club & federation last week and she looked well. We had a long wait till we got the next and then 5 minutes later got 3 together so we were hopeful of a full return.

Upon going to the club, we were a full quoto of returns (for only the 2nd time this young bird season), i have never know a season with so many unexplained losses, even speaking to some of the members today there was a lot of birds missing from this one.

Due to it being a Sunday we decided to ring round and go for an early strike off at the club, so went up for a 5pm strike off, it was a mixed race really with some members having good returns and yet others struggling to get 50%, so who knows what they ran into but certainly some of the bad weather on route. Onto the result now and it was another great result for ourselves with 1st club, timing our blue gaby vandenabeele hen who topped the federation last week to record 1080.8, 2nd club was Ray Page timing a cheq wf cock on 1062.9, in 3rd was M/M Paul Kendall timing in a red cheq hen on 1055.4, 4th was J&V Draper, John timing in a schallie cock on 1046.4 which was 4th club last week, Ken Thorpe timed a blue hen on 1046.2 for 5th.

Ferndale HS, result of the Yelverton race, with 1st & 2nd going to S.Hughes who timed a Hartog hen on 1054, followed by a Janssen x Aarden hen on 1041, taking 3rd was K.Lenderyou with a staf van reet cock on 990 and D Vardy taking 4th on 972 with a janssen Hen

well done on the win mark.................... and thanks for the write up, enjoyed it

congratulations on the win mate.

mick.