Watchfield 28.08.10

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 (28th August) and we are back to Kingsdown after last weeks change of plans due to the weather, with the Wiltshire federation (89 mile) to us.

Well this week saw the birds confined to the loft following the Honiton race on the 21st, we have just had a week away and would like to say thanks to Rob Habgood for calling over each day, checking on the latebreds, changing the water and feeding all the birds for us. The weather over in Brean was awful at times with some of the strongest winds and heavy rain showers we have witnessed in a long time, although these were mainly during the night but it was a great break and some good family time was had.

We got home on Thursday and i quickly got the birds out to stretch their wings for 10 minutes then that was it for the week, may seem harsh to some people to have birds locked up all week and expect them to compete on a Saturday with birds which have been exercised twice a day and probably had 2 or 3 training tosses in between, but our birds are well, healthy and Rob has not overfed them so they are fit to go, i have stopped a few now who are just started to moult and have only 5 flights to go in the wings.

So i carried out a full inspection on Friday night prior to basketing and picked out 7 youngsters for the race and 3 old hens for this Kingsdown race, the old hens are all on babies with our blue hen 59 being favourite and holding her feather well (hope she holds for another fortnight) i know deep down that i basically cant expect to much of them this week but i will use this race as a trainer and keep a few going for the combine race from Guernsey in 2 weeks time.Also left the big pied cock at home this week as although he is on a newly hatched youngster he just doesn’t seem to have that spark following his night out last week.

We have had a couple of birds turn in this week, with little cheq hen 7580 on Monday and blue cock 44 on Friday morning, which are both welcome additions to the team, actually handled 7580 on Friday and she looked so good that i decided to enter her into the race and wont be surprised if she is the first bird back. She is bred by Ian Young in the North East and on two of her previous races gained a 7th club followed by 5th club prior to going missing.

Saturday morning opened up beautiful following the week of bad weather we have had down here, with north westerly wind and a perfect racing day for all birds. News soon came through that the birds were away at 0915hrs, so it was out with the calculator and working out giving an eta of 11am to be with the winners this week, as stated i new deep down that we wouldn’t be any good this week due to being away but you know what its like when the clock is ticking.

So the loft was cleaned and made ready and the eta soon came and went, and after an eternity we got our first arrival the old hen 44 at 11.20, quickly followed by 59 at 11.21, our first youngsters dropped at 11.27. But looked none the worse for their efforts although maybe well behind they looked well and certainly hadn’t done any harm. Now what my plans are now is to get the few which i am going to keep racing into the training basket this coming week to get them back into trim now for the last 2 weeks.

At the club that night it was confirmed that we were over 20minutes off the pace and required timings at 11.02hrs to be in with a shout, oh well not to worry. Onto the result now and it was a great result for Ken Thorpe taking 1st & 2nd club, firstly timing a mealy cock on 1480.8, followed by a blue pd hen on 1470.9, Smith & Baker timed some quick ones with the first 2 on the same second, firstly a cheq hen followed by a blue cock both achieving 1468.2.

Wiltshire Federation, Yelverton 14.08.10, what a fantastic result for the Salisbury area flyers and congratulations on taking the first ten federation positions, starting off with a partnership who have had a fantastic season all round, M/M M Gower, Salisbury taking 1st, 2nd & 10th firstly timing a blue hen on 1177.7, followed by another blue hen on 1177.3 and finally a third blue hen on 1143.2, taking 3rd fed was M/M G Emm, Salisbury with a cheq hen on 1172.5, next up was a tremendous team performance from D Day who recorded 6 birds inside a minute on this very hardworking day to take 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th & 9th federation with a blue pd cock on 1169.3, a blue pd cock on 1168.2, a cheq cock on 1167.2, a blue cock on 1166.3 and finally a pair of cheq hens on 1165.1 and 1164.0

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

Another good read Mark, Well Done All ...