glencameron

For Frans Maris The lines that are winning at middle distance are not that of the de 10 the hen that was the base of the sprint lines. Frans Maris sold birds to uk fanciers for years without them knowing him! He had a team of Janssen pigeons just to sell at the Lier ! (Nice blues) The lines of De 10 were for themselves. The mother of the Dortmond hen was bred by Frans Maris for Stickers Dinkers that said it would be a disservice to say they are the base to fanciers who provided more of a base such as Louis berkevens , jos vervoort, luc van mechelen, van alest, Frans Heylen . Micky Betts will have put the connection together between the two lofts (Frans Maris) and has done well

Johan and Dirk Donkers (Stickers - Donkers) are cousins. I have not seen any shared breeding in the pigeons. Stickers-Donkers predominantly interested in sprint with Johan's birds being sprint / middle (races tienverbond and regio mechelen (middle) . Stickers - Donkers do race some middle distance races but not with many birds. Both made up of a myriad of local strains inexpensively assembled (don't ignore the input of Stckers in the Srickers- Donkers partnership an old wise fancier who sits in the background and whose land they race out of)

Great performances , I would hazard a quest there's are some more special ones in the next upload.

... Amongst others crossed in Hebberecht, Van hove Uytterhoeven , Albert Marcelis , Ludo Neefs, De Rauw Sablon, Meulemans from a number of sources. Jos Maris . The long distance lines Kuypers, Pieren, Bullens (the red bullens line will be a new big thing), Wijnants But the base of Van Loon, Janssen , Van Dyke (golden lady) and Rijckaert . Many lines but to be fair at the core Is but a few of the birds line bred with the crosses.

Maximum bet 1 pound for new customers only. I.e draw new customers in Furry 11/8 with most bookmakers

Congratulations on winning the Dewar trophy. Very well done

Where you are going would dictate although Belgium is a small country and you have time to plan. Brugge would be my choice. it’s a beautiful small town (Leuven a university town is also nice) Ghent is underrated most people know Antwerp ! If you tell me what town you are thinking and what you mean by long distance (I know it sounds strange but up to 500 miles or say the Internationals) I will try to put you in touch with a local fancier to these towns who speaks English. I have found The best loft visits don’t come from the most famous lofts.

Thanks Brian. As I am sure you may have guessed we have one there also. I will ask but it was not something offered as such (I also did not think of it) . I am happy for mine to try and gain some confidence once rested. That said the one reported for me is not injured , I assume this is the case also for the Dundee bird. Speak soon. Glen

SU 18 DF 1849 reported in Coldstream , will be looked after and liberated from Dunbar on Tuesday pm. If you want to collect or arrange something different pm me and I will send details of how to arrange collection etc

Congratulations Ian. A nice team performance also.

C and G Cameron distance 523 1340 velocity 1243.794 . Ian is beating that. It's very close beiwteen the first two known times.

Congratulations John a really great win. Well done

Hi Jim Durham Comine was always a planned Saturday liberation. I believe they basket Thursday pm for the benefit of workers and are there good and early.

From the driver , along Smith Street until you get to the windmills . David if you can confirm. That would be great.

Probably a lier market pigeon, registered to Van Utterbeeck E. Diedonken 11 2820 Bonheiden (Antwerp) Belgium 015551005 He is an ok sprint racer.

Was bred by Louis Cooreman

I am working in Dunfermline on Friday if you can get to me I can hand it in. I Will be at my work in Bridge of Don (Aberdeen) Monday and Wednesday this week. Thanks Glen

Most famous fancier by far in Germany. The Ringelose pigeons on every site in Germany . Koopman and delbar blood in the main but plenty other lines such as Bellens , Keen etc A brilliant fancier ... And brilliant fanciers tend to do better than the pigeons . For the number of pigeons with his blood not enough winners in my opinion That is just my opinion and you don't want to box him about it (Prange is former boxer ) read all I can on him.

Hi Wiley Not being cheeky but when you say the Dutch way can you name some fanciers who do this, for example it is not the arjan beens, jelle jellema , battenburg, Sarloos way. At present in holland there does seem to be birds clocked in at the night time. Previously it was limited to the npo late realease races (I.e a forced overnight race for 500 plus miles so they were fresh at dusk) . For the international races with a morning liberation there is but a handful clocked in during the night to the Netherlands but it must be said they do seem to make better use of the hours of daylight than Belgium and may indeed be flying longer into the night before roosting (or getting up earlier) . in the uk we don't get many late lib races. If the race is a blow home the night time clock ins are more frequent. Also be very dismissive and sceptical of the fanciers who clock in at night time and who already had a timer earlier ! Also some guys do like to be retrospectve and have a system after it has happened (commercial reason) . Jellema on his website has mentioned previously trying to teach birds to home late when racing these races with it happening with one bird on a few occasions. i guess in the U.K. There are limited races where the aim is not a day race. Perhaps NFC Tarbes If a late lib and the longest race for each respective national.

The figures and facts make grim reading and it's a very important point in history to be remembered. On the pigeon side we can do many wrongs but our friendship and respect for the city Ypres can be admired within the fraternity and beyond.

Congratulations , Amongst other great performances the first two in the national have exceptional results prior to the national and are truly top pigeons and deserving of their places. Well done.

Congratulations to the winners and brave pigeons home on the night and through the race In this day and age the SNFC on the website should be publishing at the time of liberation, the digital images of the channel and forecasts for the channel through relevant times, they should publish the line of flight information they have sought and received through France, alongside weather observations at the time of liberation. It does not feel sufficient to hear the pigeons left the liberation site in seconds or receive a backdated (glossed over perception of the happenings retrospectively) I appreciate the request is onerous as well as getting temperature updates etc but in this day and age the information is available. Fanciers themselves must should some blame for the memories are too short , one good race and it all gets forgotten (and as we have more races a season we will get a good one) . You have to earn your respect when things are tough, it is possible to liberate when others don’t if you have information which supports a perceived successful race. Also it stops the internet in it's tracks from the start as it shows how a balanced judgement was made (hopefully it is not as simple as it looked ok when I saw the BBC weather forecast or the transporters needed to be back for Ypres)

The INFC Kings cup is also planned this weekend but basketting is put back until a better forecast (source INFC website - http://www.infc.co.uk/) The race advisory committee after consultation with the weather forecast agencies have decided that the weather forecast for Friday 30th June, Saturday 1st July and Sunday 2nd July are at present not suitable to race due to a low pressure system producing strong northerly winds and heavy thundery rain up to and including Sunday

Obviously and unfortunately this is surmising but I think we need to review the overall care from set off to liberation with potential emphasis on Fridays’ condition within the respective transporters. How was water provided? what was the temperature within the transporters during the days I,e do we have temperature readings for this , was anything done to cool the transports down (if necessary). Despite the heat through England last weekend there has been good racing from more modern transportation. If all the that was possible was done to the best of the ability of the people in charge of the pigeons (and fanciers expectations) before the release then we have elsewhere to consider, For myself the SNFC has lost the ideology and aspirations of our own state of the art transporters, that in itself is fine so long as what we choose to transport with has water available on 3 sides of a crate, has the ability to cool down (I,e not just reverberated heat around the transporter) The fact the birds seem reported in a number of places would possibly indicate dehydration was at play early on. If it was up to me I would say what can we afford in terms of state of the art transporter and work backwards from there, In that it may be only possible to purchase a 1000 bird lorry as a result in such cases some races would need to be limited in birdage for a numbers for fanciers. The hot weather was always going to cause a demanding race, the story of them appearing elsewhere and also a perceived lack of returns onwards (in terms of numbers) make me think It’s Friday we should really be concentrating upon as this is when we could do our side of the care bargain for the pigeons. Until we look after our pigeons and respect them as the little miracles they are we are not going to be held in high regard when trying to discuss other issues such as hawks etc. albeit I do take on Rebus comment re hawks, even if so all of the above stands. As always there are pigeons in good time and they deserve full credit and praise also there is a simple fact that after 8 plus hours of flying pigeons do start to drop out (in terms of racing) but it's not as simple in this instance as saying well some made it others should too.

Post above updated