STAFFORDSHIRE MOORLANDS & DISTRICT FEDERATION

by Thomas Garvie

Le Mans - June 2012

Well after getting over the horror show at Blandford the fed has now moved on to a new race point in France, which is Le Mans, in place of Fougeres. They are being convoyed there with an independent convoyer who was going there with other birds and that is why we had to change from Fougeres. We had nobody to take us to Fougeres. Last year the fed had arranged to go to the French races with North Staffordshire but this year nothing was arranged because of pigeon politics where somebody does not like somebody else, so it seems we are going with whoever we can get that will take us. Again there is a distinct lack of information that is given to members as to why we go to France with someone. We had to go to Carentan ourselves with only 700 or so birds and this ended up costing the fed almost a £1,000. All these races from France should have been sorted out before the season started and not hastily arranged something like a week or so before the race.

The weather for this race looked not too bad in France and coming over the water to England. Saturday was the best day to liberate although it was horrendous up here in the north all day on the Saturday, in fact it was identical to last week's grim weather but there can be no complaints because it would have meant days in a basket before there was another good enough day in France to liberate. It is certainly no fun when you are standing in the rain for hours waiting on birds. I have never seen rain like this when waiting for birds and it certainly cannot be much fun for birds trying to come up the country in weather as bad as it was that day.

The small convoy of 410 birds were released at 06-00 in a light South West wind but I can assure you it was certainly not a light wind up here. We seem to have our own climate and if the race controllers phoned for a weather check up here before liberating then we would probably never get a race; in fact I don't know if any of the race controllers ask anybody up this way what the weather is like on race days.

Once more the on fire Packmmor loft of W Burgess topped the fed on a fairly good velocity of 1416 and he was also fourth and seventh in the fed on 1370 and 1363. Second yet again we have the Packmmor loft of J Woolrich and son very close on 1415 {there really has to be something in the water down there}. Third and sixth place went to Challengir and Collett from Meir on 1413 and 1364. Fifth fed went to A & J Pike from Berryhill on 1366 then we had Paul Beck from Longdendale on 1361.2 closely followed by R & J Goodwin and son on 1361. Tenth fed went to Macclesfield's PO Kev Bowers on 1360. So again we have the same faces at the top but well done to everybody who entered this race, which proved to be yet again not the easiest of races up here.

A little bit of news from a few clubs and starting again with Ipstones where seven members sent 35 birds and taking the red card here were R&J Goodwin and son on 1361 with a two year old cock, and they were also third with a three year old cock on 1353. K Champ was second with a yearling hen on 1354 and fourth place went to Burton & Jones on 1324 with a two year old cock. Next we have Macclesfield where 3 members sent 8 birds. They say it is a sign of the hard season and personally I think that is a huge understatement. Taking first place here was club PO Kev Bowers on 1360 with a three year old widowhood Soontjen cock which was bought at the late Derek Hill sale at Meir and Kev was third the other week at Carentan with this cock. The next three places went to Martin Hough on 1330, 1267 and 1226. His first bird was a cock out of a brother of Geoff Kirkland's Snake x Wall Lunt and Green through Blue Wonder and Carrera lines. His second bird is a nest mate to last week's winner, a two year old cock which was 2nd Poole previously. His third bird a two year old Duggins Janssen x Martin's old strain of Cheeky Belgian lines. This cock scored first club first section as a youngster. Members would like to thank this week's sponsor Dave Thornton. The last club I have any information on this race is my own club Hayfield [maybe it is as Macclesfield said, a sign of a hard season] and 5 members sent 37 birds. Taking the red card here were Liz and myself on 1316.9 with a yearling grizzle hen and we also took second place on 1316.7 with a two year old red pied hen which Liz named the Carentan hen because last year she won as a yearling at Carentan and she is the best hen we have left. She in fact landed just before the grizzle but because the rain was absolutely torrential the red hen took about five minutes to shake the water out of her and before she could go in the grizzle pushed past her to be first. We won't bother about that although I would have liked her to be first again. Looking at the provisional section result times, these birds were not on it although looking at their times maybe make them 6th and 8th north section. The reason they are not on the provisional result is because the results have to be in to Jill by 11am but the birds will have those positions when the final result is completed [as long as there were no other results to go in]. I have to say this is probably the best race we have had because we also finished fifth and sixth in the club with another two yearling hens. Taking third and fourth in the club were M/M David Ashby on 1241 and 1220 with two five year old cocks. Jean is certainly looking after their birds well and getting the best out of them so I would imagine David is quite proud of her, although he won't say that in public. Everybody that sent in the club managed to time in from this extremely difficult race and the other club positions went to Barry Spencer in 7th place on 1187 with a yearling cock. Next was house husband Steve Warhurst on 1097 with a yearling cock then Chris Mourne timed in his two year old cock on 1055. At this race we sent 12 birds, nine hens and three cocks, and we had the nine hens all home on the day but we never got a single cock home and that has been the story for us this year because we seem to be losing all the cocks. We lost our three best cocks at the Tewkesbury disaster so from then on we struggled with cocks to keep the birds paired up. We just fly the natural system because that is easy for us but because we lost the three cocks we sent to Le Mans we found ourselves short for a mate for one of the grizzle hens, which was our third bird from Saintes last year, so I ended up going to the old patients and cripples' loft to try and get a suitable cock which had previously flown out. The best one I could find that had previously had a nest box in the racing loft was a bird which I named Stumpy because he damaged his leg badly and I had to end up amputating half his leg, leaving him with a stump hence his name Stumpy. He is locked back up in his box with the grizzle hen so, as Liz says, every single bird has a use even if it is a cock with half a leg!!! I have added a photo of Liz with the red pied hen.

Liz with the Carentan hen.

On the same day as this race the fed also had a race or training toss from Hullavington but nobody in our club sent to this meaningless race as it was not in any fed averages, so what is the point and expense? Our club members wanted to watch for the birds from France rather than spend any time watching for birds from a race in my opinion of no consequence and as it happened we were glad we had not sent as there was another problem over the transporter to Hullavington and that is why the birds were liberated in the afternoon. I think with the way the fed has been heading this year everybody needs to use common sense and get the fed back on track the way it has been in previous years. Earlier I made a brief remark about politics but it is this that is sending pigeon racing into oblivion and not just within our fed. This year because of politics our fed did not go with North Staffordshire to the water races as we did last year because somebody did not like somebody else. This impacts on birds going over the water because instead of a decent convoy all coming into one area we have had two races from France and between both of them we had just over 1,00 birds. I wonder just how many we will have going to Messac or Saintes providing, that is, we are going to both these races. We need to get back to thinking of our pigeons rather than thinking of who we do or do not like or get on with. That is exactly the same with Neil Mullins, who we had as secretary and who ran a fantastic website for the fed but again because of politics the fed set up a website of its own and replaced Neil, which as far as I am concerned is a mistake that has cost the fed money, especially when this year Neil offered the fed free use of his site. Yes, free, but that offer was spurned. One of the best things when Neil had the secretary's job was that when you sent him in the results he automatically had an invoice generated to each club, which brings me to a point and that is I do not know of any club that has had an invoice of any sort for anything since the season began. I may be wrong but what is going to happen next year when the fed books are being done by an accountant and the treasurer has not got a copy of an invoice? In my opinion for next year the fed should return to the way it was previously where Neil was secretary and we used his site and Brian and Jill Smith also took over the posts they had and Brian and Roy Jones were again race controllers. I don't think that will happen but it should because it worked perfectly and everybody forgot about themselves and who they did not get on with and just THOUGHT OF THE BIRDS' WELFARE for once and get back to convoying with North Staffs for water races. It was because we were meant to be going with them we we had four water races but this has never really materialised, which again in my opinion has been detrimental to our birds. I notice looking forward in the race programme that when we are at Messac with our independent conveyor, North Staffs are there on the same day as us and two separate liberations with birds coming in to roughly the same area is beyond comprehension to me.

I think I will stop there so if you have anything for me you know where it should be sent to. The articles can be viewed in full on the fed website which is wwwmoorlandsfedpigeons.co.uk and www.pigeonsglossop.co.uk as well as the Elimar pigeon portal so until next time bye from TG.