Rooster J. Cogburn

Been to a quite a few lofts all over Scotland,Ireland and the North of England,but a loft visit I'll always remember was just a few miles up the road in Kirkliston.The loft of Ian 'Toddler' Brown,no longer with us.A nicer man in pigeons you could not meet.Nothing at all fancy,an old loft on a sort of small holding,but to me the man was a class act. His loft was a wee treasure trove of class blood that had been winning into central Scotland for decades.The pigeons were the result of gifts and exchanges with fanciers in the calibre of Jock Watson(who I think the loft used to belong and timed a SNFC open winner back in 1975)Jimmy Feeney,Jock Cormack,Robert Cormack and Jimmy Hamilton. A lot of beautiful red and red chequer pigeons with the big splashes,don't see too many of this type in the country any more.

Not my place to say as I race in the NW fed but think a lot of yous are kidding yourselves on. Northwest fed racing down the east this season.I know of fanciers left with less than a fifth of the old birds they started with.Heard of fanciers losing as many as 50 or 60 youngsters over the course of the 6 week YB programme.Between Witton Castle,Ripon and Wakefield a friend of mines lost 35 pigeons. Don't think you will be doing your yearlings any favours next season if goiing back down the East.Do you think perhaps the old bird losses were perhaps worst than the young bird losses due to the fact they had raced down the East all their days and many couldn't handle the change in course?In hindsight would use have been better racing the old bird East and youngsters West with a view to racing an all West route next season? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0I-awHR_yI That said I wish the best luck to all Lanarkshire members for 2013

Think he had some Deweerdts and birds from Brian Denney to try out amongst some local birds.Obviously some Buddle lines as well

Been lucky enough to visit the Blacks of Dromore a few times.After seeing their pigeons the only loft I need to visit is my own My dad met Rab Hamilton on a site through the tarring just as he was starting up the doos.He visited Rab and asked him to come up to direct him .Rab obliged but said he doesnae ever go on loft visits as his pigeons aren't good enough to be going and looking at somebody elses PS I got to handle the Dalgliesh hen before she was (really)famous What a pigeon,a bird that flew herself to the point of exhaustion and brought round by Stevie and Graham.The rest as they say is history

Spoke to Derek last year and they no longer have the Janssens ,they were all sold on.Hes trying his hand at the long distance international races now. For inland racing here I couldn't speak highly enough of his old Janssens and if pushed I believe they would have scored well from 500 miles. Always sent out perfectly reared birds for pennies really when you see some of the prices these days.They brought us a lot of fun a few years back

Yes Jim Hannah still flies and scored well in the national this year.Again like you I don't think much of its through the Biozard stuff. Like all these old families it will be difficult to get it in the recognisable form you are after,but many fanciers today will have it through their lofts of winning birds-just not "pure". anything in particular Derek?

My cousins a nice bowler.Hes the reigning Falkirk indoor champion and under 25 champion.Hes up in Fraserburgh next week at some sort of national thing. I played once with him in a rink.I wasnae what ye would call a natural

I mess around with a couple of guitars,aside from that mostly binge drinking

Sorry I have misread the pedigree.Ignore the last comment Good luck with your bidding

Notice the "only" performance listed is her 1st Pau.Was she stopped and put to stock after this?

I'm sure Walter handled Louvre Not 100% but he will post when hes on I'd imagine

one of the best pigeons to ever race from Barcelona

excellant

My dads working down in Cumnock this week so after seeing to the doos in the morning we went for a run down to see whats what. I was on the look out for some training points for next year Beautiful countryside

Good to hear theres a seconder in Peter and at least a couple of votes

If thats the case then what you are getting at is that channel racing in Scotland will be dead and buried in tens years time regardless?? All we will have left of "national racing" in ten years will be inland national races which to be honest on the whole are only really glorified fed races for the fanciers racing into certain areas?? These inland national races are not providing suitable racing for all the Scottish fancy in my mind at all.In fact they are taking away a lot from most of the inland minded fliers in the country. To answer your question.I cannot predict numbers but would be almost certain it would be the biggest Reims and Tours birdage for many years.Inland orientated members would resign and would have far better racing as result.If adjacent feds and organisations were to cooperate(very big IF ) they would be racing competetively right down to the coast,not making up numbers and losing many of their best pigeons in the process. Anyway as most people say the inland national races are here,you don't have to send if you don't want to. I won't say I will never send to them but if so it will only be through necessity as many of the feds are being forced into suiting their programmes around Newbury and Eastbourne/Maidstone. There are too many factors outwith the control of one organisation or group to better inland and channel racing in Scotland so we will just have to make do the best we can,if this means having Inland nationals then so be it

Its not only the impact on the SNFC channel races that I believe the Inland nationals are affecting. Its a case of stealing from the poor to feed the rich.They greatly affect fed racing. Think it would be much fairer if the inland racing was left to feds to joint convoy and if the SNFC stuck to channel racing. The inland racers would enjoy it much more as they are racing in bigger competitions they actually stand a chance of scoring well in and the channel racing would be enjoyed as it has been for decades,only with bigger birdages. For me both SNFC old bird inland races should be done away with as well as the YB national and we should have 4 national channel races. This is only my opinion.The members will decide,the ones it doesn't suit will just have to soldier on and enjoy their doos

smashing performance Sure DKJ on heres first bird from Ypres was latebred in its 4th or 5th ever race.May be getting mixed up though

Will see what happens,had latebred teams the last couple of years albeit this is the most I've ever had.If theres one good one comes through its enough I had a September reared latebred in the clock after 14 hours from Ypres this season,he was too late to make the result but I liked the way he came.Quite fancy him going into next season *fingers crossed* Best of luck tomorrow

Got around 20 this year. Won't touch them til May time next year but they on an open loft and are doing a bit of tramping now. Got one marked down as a "special one" but we'll see how it pans out.They are all roughly the same age and moulting quite heavily but this thing has raced through and looks a million dollars.It will more than likely be the first one I lose

thats a big shock. I met him for the first time this year with a stray.We blethered away for a while,he was a really nice guy and was just getting back into the doos. RIP Alan

Got to take into consideration the weather this year and whether it was Reims,Alencon or Liege it was never going to suit the whole convoy or lead to great returns. I'm not too fussed whether its Alencon or not but would like to see a settled programme for a wee while,this chopping and changing every other year is not the way to go to improve the quality of racing I don't think.

Think straying from Alencon,Ypres and Clermont would just be a change for changes sake??