Rooster J. Cogburn

good thread Walter's experience with his good yearling hen made me think of T.C Ogivlie's 'Trapping Hen'. For me she is amongst the best birds to have flown in the country. 8 times from France 4 times in the top 2% Open SCC with her highest position being 3rd Open 4 times in the top 2% Open SNFC with her highest position being 9th Open and 7 x 1st inland and I can't remember all her fed positions(a lot) Whenever she started going to the field and bringing in sticks to the loft they'd put a few shillings on her There was one race from Sartilly with the SNFC where she arrived home with her mate-the pair of them were something like 15th and 16th Open if memory serves me well.

Super pigeon. Frank is setting the heather on fire in the distance racing at the moment I can't think of any off the top of my head. If there was any I thought it'd maybe something along the lines of a Walker and Wilson bird

Aye a superb pigeon

My dad took me up to Wellbank to John's when I was 14. It was an experience He's some man and they are lovely family

I don't think any body could argue with you there Davie. I'm lucky enough to have his photos from over the years here at the moment. All the old ones; Wellbank Pride-8th open Rennes,Wellbank Star-5th Open Nantes,Patricia-9th Open Beauvais, Paris Cock-11th Open Nantes, £1000 Hen-10th and 12th open Rennes, Wellbank Endurance-27th and 82nd Open BBC Palamos, the Mealy Pied hen-21st Nantes on the day of lib etc. etc. right through to the present day.

cheers Davie My mistake

Aye hes one of the best that's for sure The photo hasnae uploaded properly.It's not really flattering the bird, which is a bit of looker.

This bird was 10th open SNFC Alencon 2013 and 19th Open SNRPC Reims 2012 amongst a whole host of other positions. Bred and Raced by John Ellis, Wellbank Has there been another bird that has scored in the top 20 of both the SNFC Gold Cup race and the SNRPC Gold Medal??

I’ve read things that show a human interest in pigeon's homing instincts going back 100s/almost 1000s of years. There is one old book that cites this man as one of the forefathers of the modern day long distance pigeons in the UK. William Bernhardt Tegetmeier, who was born in 1812 and lived to be 96 years old. He was from a fairly privileged and moneyed background, with his father being a skilled surgeon. From a very young age he apparently took a great interest in birds and bees(literally), there was the loose beginnings of racing pigeons going on around him with some people having mile races at weekends etc. He was always discouraged by his parents, but this made him all the more interested in pigeons and he made friends with some of the locals who kept birds in the poorer areas of London near where he grew up. He too became a qualified medical doctor, but apparently it wasn’t what he was interested in. He wrote a number of books on plants, bees, poultry, pigeons etc etc.. It was said that he had hundreds of pigeons including a number of what we’d probably refer to as ‘fancy breeds’. He became interested in showing birds and was a founding member of the Philoperisteron Society. At one of their meetings which were held in a sort of Masonic Hall he was introduced to Charles Darwin by a mutual friend. Darwin was very interested in the habits of pigeons and bees as part of his work and was told that Tegetmeier was the man to ask on these things. Tegetmeier gave him a lot of advice to help him with his research as well as actual animals to study. Back to the racers, Tegetmeier made acquaintance with a number of Belgians. At that time there were a handful of recognised ‘types’ of pigeon in the country. I can’t quite remember them all but I’m sure two of them were the ‘Antwerps’ and the ‘Liege’. One of them was said to be of the larger type, bigger boned, bold wattles etc and the other were finer and smaller altogether.The rest apparently comprised of crosses between the birds from these regions. He started to organise competitions for these Belgian men and would bring birds over to England with him and release them. The ones that made their way home he would usually buy for his own collection. Although he never raced himself a number of the British ‘pioneers’ obtained their stock through him. There were a number of fanciers taking an interest in different parts of the country simultaneously and two of the record breakers/record makers were J. W Logan and J. O Allen. These fanciers seem to have been the first two UK fanciers that were recording pigeons from distances in excess of 400 miles on the day of liberation. As a point of interest the J. O Allen blood could be found in the ancestors of the Burrell of Douglas Water pigeons. As for the creation of the battle hardened strain, it’s down to opinion and not many fanciers are genuinely qualified to tell someone how to do it(myself included). I personally think Jim Biss’ method was very interesting; purchasing a number of the UK’s greater distance record holders at great expense, for what he considered to be their constitution and survivability. He also bought numerous MULTIPLE performance birds. Great 600-700 mile champions like; Knightsdale Lady, Hermano,Hermana, Prima etc. Doos that scored something like20 times between them from Spanish racepoints. Interesting to hear him talk about visiting the Fear Bros, he had little interest in Clandown( a NFC Pau Open Winner) as he had only scored once.

Cheers for the reply Ian We'll just have to wait and see what happens

It's a shame that some members are being put off voting for the programme they consider to be the best-due to these Saturday libs. Would it be possible to vote for the committee's recommended programme with the Alencon and Clermont intended libs altered to be a Friday?

If the Maidstone birds are held to a Tuesday, then yes that should alleviate a problem.I don't think a Tuesday Maidstone liberation is an ordinary occurrence though. What if they are held to the Wednesday this year? do we make the Gold Cup a Thursday basketting in 2015? Missing a potential Friday race could in other ways create problems. Still,taking everything into consideration I think the committee have done a good job in compiling their recommended race programme .If it's passed I'll just cross my fingers the 27th of June and the 18th of July are wash outs and the Saturdays are wall to wall sunshine

I think the management committee's recommended programme is very good on the whole. The only thing I don't really understand and would need clarification on is the suggestion that Alencon and Clermont be flown on a Saturday instead of a Friday. The reasons may very well be fantastic, but I just can't think of them. Maybe I'm missing something I'm sure all will be revealed at the meeting.

Aye a lot of information can come out from discussion amongst members. This leads onto a proposal that I haven't yet seen discussed on here yet-postal voting. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, but there are certain things proposed this year that I am not 100% sure about. I'd need to hear people talk about them at the meeting before making up my own mind on what to vote for. If the postal voting is passed(again maybe not a bad thing)then in seasons to come some members may be voting on things they don't fully understand. I'm not too sure if the postal vote will go through, as from what I can see the decision will be in the hands of the members who have attended the meeting. Perhaps to get a true reflection on the members thoughts about this motion it would need to be decided by a postal vote

Had a wee look at the SNRPC Portsmouth result there just now The top prizes seem to have been well shared with birds from Dunbar,Kirkpatrick Fleming,Coalburn,Brydekirk,Wellbank,Stirling,Fife,Cockburnspath and Glasgow all featuring in the first 11 open.

I don't think you'll ever get two fanciers who will agree on absolutely everything, but there's a lot of members whose posts I enjoy. I've got into contact with people through the site I would have never really known otherwise and that's one of the good things about PB for me. Hard to single someone out, although I like a lot of Alec Guinness' contributions to the site. Have met him and his dad a few times now and I consider them to be good fanciers, not just in terms of results or the way they are with the pigeons either. PS I've not picked up my rings yet John, but you should receive a couple in the post later in the year

It used to be bigda I for one think the site has missed him recently

All the best to the members of PB for the coming year. Let's hope it's a good one.

Taking up Mossgiel's point. The only real issue I have with race programme part of the recommendations by the management committee is the idea that the Gold Cup race and Clermont should be flown on a Saturday. I look forward to hearing the theory behind it and hopefully it will clear up my current confusion surrounding the concept. Aside from this I think it's probably the best 7 event race programme I have seen proposed for the club

cheers

Tried to PM ye Think yer inbox might be full Rooster

Hope yous have a good day George and the wee yin isnae too hyper

I don't need to pretend to be a Turkey John,I've enough of them out in the lofts

Merry Christmas to all the PB members Rooster

Here are a couple of present day West Section crackers