where has all the youngbirds gone ?

IS THIS WOT HAPPENS TO ALL OF OUR BIRDS???

Unread postby rich123 » Thu Sep 06, 2012 6:40 am
FOUND ON ANOTHER SITE

HI ALL...

With permission, the following account is from a lad who works on a rig 36 miles off Whitby in Yorkshire, it is his description of events since over 200 birds arrived at the rig on Saturday last.


Not good..............


Posted 1 September 2012 - 15:07 PM

Around 2pm onwards heaps of birds out on the rig today.
GB NEHU birds. One taken by a crane wire - has a stamp but unreadable! Only Whitby is clear GB12 T 38405.Any one on.from.whitby ?

To top it all there is a hawk hear aswell!

Could not get worse.

Posted 3 September 2012 - 15:16 PM

Right I have never seen anything like this since I started on oil rigs. Over 200 birds came out around 2pm followed by 2 Peregrines - the carnage was very severe. Many birds were landing in the sea driven down by pair of them.
Some were trying to drink sea water before they were attacked from above.
Then it was wanton killing all day Saturday even when dark. Birds were all taken up to top of the crown - 190ft high.Bloody murder big time! I have been in touch with RPRA / NWHU / NEHU with a list of the casultys. By the way the wind was near gale forcr from the West on Saturday. This has put me off pigeon racing big time
The panic these birds went through and to witness it has shook me to the core.


Posted Yesterday, 15:27 PM

I still haven’t got over it yet! The GB birds were racing from Berwick Scotland, the NEHU birds don’t know as yet. We are 36mls off Whitby Yorks. The murderers went back to land on Monday morning after every last one was killed. Some were not even touched after being killed .The sea took a heap and some flew into walls and wires to avoid them. Its bloody sad that’s all I can say about it.



At least it answers some questions for some fanciers, and confirms the thoughts of many.


Steve

its sickening when you read something like this makes you wonder how bad it realy is over land something really dose need to be done this great sport an hobbie of our is disapearing

Rene A wrote:

its sickening when you read something like this makes you wonder how bad it realy is over land something really dose need to be done this great sport an hobbie of our is disapearing

There will be no pigeon racing in 20 years, of that i am positive

Thats sounds a bit like racing pigeons in wales lads, not sure if we are ever believed down here about how bad it is for us in fact we have almost stopped talking about it these days., It used to be a talking point in the club perigrine attaks but its not hardly mentioned now. I see perigrines every day almost and sparrow hawks the are like any other bird in pembrokeshire flying about on hot days there are dozens high in the sky.
I am a decent fancier with good pigeons, I bred 85 ybs this season and after 6 tosses I was down to 45, and thats what I sent to the first race. Now I have 15 raced birds so I have lost 70?
not all the 15 were raceable all the time some came back late and have been hit and injured out of the 15 left I have been sending 7, then 6 and last week 5. with 1 inland race left next week Im down to 3 lost 2 last week they have had 6 races each but wont see them again as they are probably dead.
Stories like that dont shock me and dont surprise me a bit but whats to be done, I think same as in wales nothing just grin and bare it and breed more birds to feed an ever growing perigrine population, the answer is stop artificial nesting sites and make it illegal to supply them so the balance of breeding birds can be tipped just slightly in our favour..Raptor alliance my arse!

Rudderfett wrote:

Thats sounds a bit like racing pigeons in wales lads, not sure if we are ever believed down here about how bad it is for us in fact we have almost stopped talking about it these days., It used to be a talking point in the club perigrine attaks but its not hardly mentioned now. I see perigrines every day almost and sparrow hawks the are like any other bird in pembrokeshire flying about on hot days there are dozens high in the sky.
I am a decent fancier with good pigeons, I bred 85 ybs this season and after 6 tosses I was down to 45, and thats what I sent to the first race. Now I have 15 raced birds so I have lost 70?
not all the 15 were raceable all the time some came back late and have been hit and injured out of the 15 left I have been sending 7, then 6 and last week 5. with 1 inland race left next week Im down to 3 lost 2 last week they have had 6 races each but wont see them again as they are probably dead.
Stories like that dont shock me and dont surprise me a bit but whats to be done, I think same as in wales nothing just grin and bare it and breed more birds to feed an ever growing perigrine population, the answer is stop artificial nesting sites and make it illegal to supply them so the balance of breeding birds can be tipped just slightly in our favour..Raptor alliance my arse!

We dont have it nearly half as bad as this around here no where near but the proble is creeping here more and more, there has been peregines introduced to the local church in town which is very high to stop any problems but im 7 miles from town so yet to see the impact yet. when i do and if i were to suffer like you lads in Wales and Cumbria i wouldnt keep going, no way couldnt deal with all that stress in a hobby that is meant to be relaxing

I will be honest it used to bother me but it doesnt antmore, not to say some days on bad tosses I get a bit down but the ones that come back make it worth while again...when I go off and the birds come back in 1,s all day you know your going to loose quite a few its hard as you never know if stock pairs are rubbish or the ybs from them have just been unlucky.

As I said this year my birds had 6 tosses, 5 miles , 12 miles, 12 miles, 15 miles, 15 miles, and 20 miles, that was it I dare not go any more as every time 5 are gone or more, I lost 22 in 1 toss this year but then the last tosses only a couple. its mad but I love racing and will carry on regardless, stuff action groups and raptor alliance its all rubish we have our own way of dealing with it and it keeps things a bit in check but its still madness.
As Pembrokeshire is a national park mostly and has Islands and coast lines like no other we have our share of conservationists and nutters who cant see the wood for the trees and therefore everthing is watched filmed and protected, our local new Powerstation and refinery has just been putting up perigrine boxes as there is a bird ringer on site working for the station and has canvased for the boxes to go up, there are 3 pairs in 1 spot nesting on the refinery. as if they need help in Pembrokeshire..lol

things like this need more publicity but to be honest i dont think we will ever have an impact on the rspbops propaganda machine and all its wealth as they have no moral ground it seems,i read an article where they were left a gentlemans estate in his will because he wanted the wildlife to remain untouched but the rspb sold it off to developers ...what a f****n disgrace ,nature dont make me laugh they are only interested in selective nature and pigeon racing well i give it 5 years ....what a shame

Ian, I dont post often but had to reply to this, its very sad reading that, every week we lose birds and slag them off as being bad birds but what a terrible way to go, poor things, I breed about 8 ybs a year and when there gone there gone, I couldnt stand breeding 30/40+ ybs and losing loads to the bops, its so wrong and I can only see it getting worse

paul how birds have you lost this season and how many to bops .i do,nt think we have the problems on some on here losing them nearly everyday,thats hard to take.we are lucky compared to these lads

well i dont think the answer is to breed more to feed them that will just encourage a bigger population of the damn things surely and to be honest we race at the worst times of year when they are breeding with OBS and when they are teaching their young to hunt with YBS and i think all fanciers should have a lockdown of the lofts from end of yb racing until febuary alot already do but alot dont and this would surely help and also maybe a re-think of the racing dates but it wont happen as pigeon fanciers dont work together to many divisions and the organisations dont work together either we could even cease racing and breeding for 2 years but you can hear the cries now from the money men and mob flyers but what will they do when the games over because that is the only way it will go...who the feck wants to come into the sport at its cost just to have their birds taken before their eyes and not be able to do anything about it ...its our own fault because as individuals we are not doing enough to come together with a master plan ......the best i heard to date was a suggestion of getting a few coaches of fanciers on a day trip to london to highlight the problem outside parliament now another would be to lobby at all artificial nesting sites with evidence of the carnage and not only to our birds but also the songirds but it seems the british public are not that concerned with them either ,sorry for the doom lol but just trying to be realistic

Oldstrain I will begin by agreeing with you, as firstly we do race at the worst possible times, old birds not quite as bad but when the hen starts stashing for when shes sitting it does clash witht the old birds.

The yb racing is the worst because she is feeding youngsters in June when we train and later on educating her ybs how to catch, however what is the altunative as our dates are weather related.

Now I will disagree as you havent quite grasped why perigrines are a problem mostly in wales, basically the main reason why Wales is covered in hundreds of perigrines is because of our coast which offers the perigrines food all year round without much effort.

When its gail force winds, rain and frost easy food is what you want they dont want to go far and hunt, as this depletes thier reseves and isnt practical, therefor we dont get hardly any attacks during the winter, as they simply move to where the food and shelter is.
Locking down for the winter would do nothing at all, If we stopped breeding and racing for a couple of seasons country wide this would put a dent i the numbers other than that nothing will work.

The biggest problem during winter months would be from sparrowhawks which are migratory and constantly move around during the winter, therfor you will get more attacks from them in the winter, but I would take 20 hawks for 1 perigrine as they dont cause training birds problems like the perigrine does.
They only cause problems around the loft which is manageable very easily pm me to find out how to sort them out, as for perigrines we are almost poewerless to do anything.

i see yer point of view martyn and have to agree in pembrokeshire the problem is out of hand due to peregines being a coastal bird by nature, i realy feel for the welsh fanciers on the coast it must be yer worst nightmare and it was the welsh fanciers who suggested a coach trip to the capital to highlight the problem but they were not backed by the other organisations but when all said and done it did not stop fanciers independently backing the whu and i would have certainly booked a ticket for one of the coaches atb m8

peel bros wrote:

paul how birds have you lost this season and how many to bops .i do,nt think we have the problems on some on here losing them nearly everyday,thats hard to take.we are lucky compared to these lads

Hi Ray, I agree with you, I dont think we have a problem with bops in South Shields as great as other lads, I dont know how many we have lost to bops as our raceline may/may not come across bops on the way home, Ive lost around 8 this year old and young uns in training, but dont know how they have perished but think bops are a thing of the future as theres no protection for pigeons these days.

thats right paul how can you say how many youngbirds you have lost to birds of prey we dont know what happens on route , but your right paul it can only get worse

get everyfanicer in the uk to strap rat posion to the back of there pigeons on race day bop be down with in a year haha