MIDLANDS NATIONAL FLYING CLUB

MIKE LAKIN

Chale Young Birds Looking Good for R. & P. Montila

Last weekend the MNFC held its first young bird race of the 2012 season. The birdage for this race was well down on the previous year but this was widely expected after all the heavy losses which have been endured by members this year. Without a doubt 2012 will be long remembered but for the wrong reasons. Never can I remember a worse summer, with one good day followed by a week of rotten weather which has deeply affected our sport. With this in mind the send of over 3,000 pigeons was a good one and after the almost compulsory one day holdover the birds were released at 8.45 into blue skies and a WNW wind which was much lighter than on the previous day.

Robert & Peter Montila

As with all races the wind decides the approximate location of the winners and this proved to be the scenario once again, which will always be the case especially in races ranging from distances of 100-200 miles. The most important thing though is ensuring that returns are good and judging by the comments made by the competing members that I spoke to this certainly was the case on this occasion. This is the aim of a race that is really a dress rehearsal for the longer cross channel race flown in a couple of weeks' time. Many believe that the birds' experiences in this shorter event proves to be invaluable education for learning to eat and drink in the crates. This I am convinced is a very important lesson because once a young bird is shown it never forgets.... unlike most humans!

On now to the actual race and the probable winners are the likeable twins Robert & Peter Montila who hail from Everton in Bedfordshire. This isn’t their first national win as they have been on the winner's rostrum before including 1st MNFC from Bergerac a few years ago. I visited the brothers a few weeks ago when they finished 2nd in the Tours national behind Colin Crick & Son and they told me that 2012 had been a far from ideal year preparation wise. It appears that this has continued into the young bird season as their babies had only previously been privately trained gradually up to a distance of 70 miles. Their likely winner is a chequer pied hen and is bred from a half brother of Les Grain’s famous double national winner ‘Max a Million’ while her dam is from their friend Pieter Oberholster, who is well known for being the UK PIPA agent.

This is all that I can reveal at this time as some of the leaders have clocked several early arrivals so to try and report at this time would be complete folly. If you take a look through the leaderboard you will see some superb performances which have been achieved from all over the club’s radius. These will be covered once the full result is known because I hate errors.