Watchfield & The Vale Flying Club
*Remember there are No Secrets from a Bottle, just Hardwork, Dedication & Determination*
Well folks here we are again and its now the 30th May, i hope things are progressing well within your lofts and things are going to plan with your results and achievements so far, we have a bit of catching up to do this week.
This week saw the start of our target races being the first NFC race Fougeres and the combine race from Messac, i had sent my paperwork off to the NFC to enter 4 birds in the NFC and the other choice candidates were going to Messac, the club did have a sprint race on the cards to basically see if it was viable to hold federation land races when competing with the combine overseas.
I had 3 main candidates in mind for this weeks races and these were “05” cock, “04” & “06” hens, all 2yr olds and showing signs of improving fitness last week. It was now decision time as to what to send to were, after much deliberation i decided to enter the hens to the national and the cocks to the combine, this was basically because i didn’t want to carry 2 baskets to the NFC with a couple of hens in one and a cock in the other.
6th Race Weekend, Seaton & Messac 21/05/11.
Up and about early on Saturday morning, got all the loft chores done and out of the way. We soon had the phonecall to say the birds were on there way. So it was out with the calculator and work out some velocities for an approx ETA, well i worked out that we wanted arrivals from the combine at 1215pm and the national at 1230pm.
So i set up the ets, put the kettle on and prepared for the wait, as time started to drag on i was wondering were they were when i saw our first arrival appear to be timed at 1223pm it was our good cock “05” which was pleasing but should i have sent him the national, our next arrived at 1233pm (oh, be a national bird), but no it was our next from the combine. We had a few others from the combine but no national birds, where were they??, we had a look at the computer showing some early times in the national and arrivals in our section at around 1235pm flying further than us, but nothing back here yet!!. Then at 1250pm we had our first returnee from the national, i clocked her in and then our second dropped at 1251pm, clocked her and then unbelievable our 3rd dropped at 1252hrs........were had they been, they looked well and arrived well just off the pace. Well this but me in deep thought mode, had i done something wrong.........we will never know.
At the club that night the result from the Seaton race was a good one for top sprinter Ken Thorpe who had his team in fantastic form to take 1st, 2nd & 3rd with three yearling widowhood cocks, firstly a blue followed by two red chequers these being Ken’s Staf van reet & red fox janssen lines recording 1803.5, 1802.8 & 1801.4 (well done Ken), other club sprint king M/M C Aldridge & Son was hot on his heals with 4th club timing a 3yr old blue pd belgie widowhood cock to record 1799.9.
Messac, we have George & Malcolm Seagroatt take 1st club continuing their fantastic season gaining their third win so far, this time recording a 2yr old cheq gaby vandenabeele hen racing roundabout to record 1615.3, ourselves take 2nd & 4th timing our good 2yr cheq gaby vandenabeele cock “05” who won the club last week from carentan to record 1594.0 and a consistant 3yr old blue gaby vandenabeele cock to record 1535.0 both racing on widowhood, Ernie Smith & Baker take 4th timing a 3yr old dark cock to record 1538.2.
I did make one grave mistake this week, as readers may remember i am conditioning our little yearling hen “7487” for bigger things this week, well after giving her the Honiton race last week were she returned well i decided to enter her into the combine messac race to continue her preparations........well she has failed to return, i rushed her to quickly, my mistake and to say that i am kicking myself is an understatement!!!
Some good news, **News Flash**
Congratulations to George & Malcolm Seagroatt whose 2yr old cheq hen has provisionally finished 1st Wessex combine Messac when 49 Clubs, 374 Members sent 3742 pigeons, also ourselves who finished provisionally 2nd combine.
Keith Palmer on finishing provisionally 3rd section and to Roy & Shiela Titcombe on being 5th section in the NFC race.
7th Race Weekend, Newton Abbott 28/05/11.
After last weeks race, and some thinking time i decided to re-pair all the birds to get the ready for our next target races which would be in two weeks time, with again the NFC at Nantes and the combine going to Cholet.
On Wednesday i decided to take the youngsters training, due to us taking a whalloping each year with the hawks, i had been advised that i should get a bit of short tosses into the youngsters at this time of year, as the hawks are sitting now.......... so i basketing our young hens. young cocks and our national loft, which are young birds bred by some of our very good friends which we were going to test them in the yb national. I was taking them to “Ham” approx 5mile south, but upon arriving at Hungerford the traffic was awful (obviously road works and after sitting in the traffic for 25mins decided to head through and go out towards Marlborough, whilst driving down the A4 i came across little bedwyn and thought this will do, so i pulled off and drove through the village which opened up into a lovely green by the canel....ideal, so it out with the baskets and settle.
After a long conversation with a lady who was visiting the area fron the isle of white, about pigeons in general and explaining that these were this years babies etc etc i let the hens go, off they drifted no problems. After approx 5 minutes i let the cocks go, they again seemed to drift off so i let the testers go, i was just putting the baskets away when i saw the young cocks coming racing back to join up with the testers..........then bang!!! The hawk struck, they scattered everywhere..........
When i got home the hens were back, as were half a dozen young cocks, and that was it. At the end of that Wednesday night i was 10 of our 17 young cocks missing and 21 of the 22 test birds, couldn’t believe it...........gutted!!
So it was up early Thursday morning with the old birds out when i saw a yb drop on the loft at 0545hrs, the morning was ok not brilliant but ok. Over the next hour we had 7 more work in.......at about 8am the weather changed, it started to rain and rain and some seriously heavy down pours all day long. At the time of writing this article some 5 days later we are still 2 young cocks and 15 testers adrift which hopefully will get reported over this next week to give them the chance they deserve...........so there we have it MISTAKE NUMBER 2 has been made, and they say it comes in three’s......
When i got home on Friday Clare told me the “87” was home of which i said “oh, good” thinking it was one of the youngsters which i had missing and whose nestmate “88” i had got in earlier in the day, well oh no.......it was my little hen “7487”, she had been missing for 6 nights from my first mistake when i sent her to Messac, she looked a poor state but she is home. Well i looked at the birds on Friday and decided to enter them into the club race this weekend from Newton Abbott a distance of 110mile to our loft, this should provide additional fitness to the team as the wind as forecast south again.
Up and about early on Saturday morning, got all the loft chores done, we soon had the phonecall to say the birds were away. So it was out with the calculator and work out some velocities as i thought with this wind and its strength the early birds would be knocking out 1900ypm today, giving an eta of 1210hrs for this dash.
Again the ets was set up, kettle on and i prepared for the wait, the eta came and went and the day had not cleared well at all, the wind was howling yet we couldn’t see the hills at the end of the back field. At 1017 our first arrival appeared and quickly trapped to record 10.17.37, five minutes later our next came diving from the back, and this turned out to be a very sticky race with lots of birds missing, we ourselves had 3 out overnight which all arrived back before 0930hrs on the Sunday morning.
At the club that night the result was a good result for club sprint kings M/M C Aldridge & son taking 1st with a 5yr old red van soest widowhood cock recording 1813.2, they don’t get this age on the sprint scene unless they are big winners. Taking 2nd club was ourselves with a yearling cheq gaby vandenabeele cock sent driving his hen to record 1804.2, taking 3rd club was Ray Page timing a 2yr old slatey widowhood cock to record 1802.6 and other club sprint man Ken Thorpe dropped two quick ones for 4th & 5th firstly a 4yr old dark wf cock recording 1801.9
Just had a look at the long range forcast foe this weekends National races, which are indicated 22mph North Easterly winds this week, which should see the NFC being dominated by the West country boys, Our team are just starting to lay up now.
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.ukTel - 07593 279 375
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The N.E.H.U race from Melton Mowbray 21/4/2012 was won by Peel bros of South Shields, they took 1st club 1st fed, also taking 2nd and 4th club and 15 of the 25 birds clocked in the club......well done Peel brothers.
