Rooster J. Cogburn

Oldest I have heard of was Bobby Carruthers 1989 Sartilly winner at 9 years old.May well be some older though

Aye those cats can be awfy careless around railway lines

can imagine there wouldnae be much in the way of remains after that My dad used to work clearing the track for the railway.If something was hit(sheep,cow etc) they'd find it strung out all over the place.There was a suicide once and they couldnae find all the parts,a week later my dad spotted the guys leg up a tree near the side of the track.

They cannae have been taken the day surely George??frosty lookin??

Hope you enjoy the pigeons Shane Listen to Tiger

Everybody will have lost a favourite at somepoint one that springs to mind is "Freckles" She was 18th,12th and 7th open Rennes for Robert Cormack,attacked by a hawk in the garden.She survived the attack but Robert went into the loft the following morning to find her dead. We had a blue hen SU01 NW 3628.She was the first pigeon that ever won a race when I went into partnership with my dad.She came back from a training toss in 2002 so badly injured she had to be put out of her misery. I was young at the time so was moping about for days Still have one of her primary flights and the rubber ring she was wearing from the race prior to the toss in a folder somewhere along with her red ticket. Got to take the rough with the smooth as they say

Theres some good deals wi Stenaline on the Stranraer to Belfast crossing coming up,yous are in bother

01606 836036 07871 701585 these are the contact numbers for Les Parkinson taken from his site. He has written about the Nicholsons in the past so I'm sure you'll get a contact number for them through him. Perhaps even get an idea of a few other fanciers to visit when your in the area. You never know

Bad news Sapper Keep at it though.Theres a lot to look forward to and you'll kow yourself the highs outweigh the lows.Hopefully some highs to come for you during the racing in the coming months.

Think racepoints and bop are an excuse overused by the fancier these days.They are without a doubt a contributing factor to good birds being lost,but we need to look closer to home with regards to the extreme losses in my opinion

a few times we've been with them unintentionally Makes for a good laugh

Its no you thats gonnae be flying 500 mile on the night John.Enjoy yer food man

The boy in the bed across fi me absolutely f*cked his leg,he had to get a bone graft from his hip.He said he couldnae feel a thing cause ae aw the morphine they were feeding him. They'll keep yi doped up when yer in Frank and as long as ye take it easy when ye get oot you'll be up and aboot in no time

There'll be doos screaming up there heading for the Raploch a few weeks from now Not long to go.Fair looking forward to it

Thanks for the messages all Hope its nothing too serious Frank,that was the first time I'd ever been in as a patient as well.Wasnae too keen on the needles but all the staff and the other patients in the ward were spot on. I'm sure you'll be fine

Keep dodgin away Toosh,not long now til the better weather sets in The end of the week they'll be good as new.Ye wouldnae get them just now anyway I need them til the end of September

Aye limped aboot up the doos fer a bit the day Cannae complain too much aboot a sare knee when you see some the poor souls in that hospital. How ye faring yourself this weekend Toosh??

yep agree there Maverick.The nurses and indeed all the staff were first class

Hes touched on work going on with pigeons within schools and young offendors institutes etc. in his previous films heres the next part of the interview "In 2012 I will be working on finishing a short film called "Young Wings: The Power of Pigeons". It's something of my own story with pigeons and my effort to show how they can address what is called Nature Deficit Disorder in children. This is a newly diagnosed condition that results from too much technology and no contact with nature. It's a very serious problem in the developed world. This film is the story of my search to see if pigeons are as powerful for children today as they were when they changed my life. I personally believe that our ability to prove we can improve children's lives is a key factor in the survival of our hobby. And I don't just mean racing but being allowed to keep pigeons at all. People have heard about this project and said I'm doing a film aimed at children. But that is wrong. Kids are easy to interest in pigeons. I've found that our first target needs to be educators and parents who govern what children are allowed to do. This will be a short work, ideal for a presentation to a group. My hope is it becomes a tool for pigeon people to stimulate interest in using the birds with children. I plan to finish it by mid-summer. It's taken longer than I thought simply because I've kept finding good stories to add to it. We are also working on translating many of my 12 films into other languages. And finally I'm going to do what I hope is a funny and entertaining film for beginners called "How to Raise and Train Pigeons". In all the projects I've done there is not a basic, entry level piece and I'd like to fill that gap. So this year is a lot more about general interest material for the outside world than the latest methods of top fanciers. People can read about some of these projects at our website: www.pigeonfilms.com."

I'd borrowed some of the Jim Jenner films from a friend recently so when I saw this article with Jim Emerton was up I gave it a read. I've been enjoying Jim Jenner's films and would have to say from from what I've seen and heard hes a pretty positive influence in the game today

Some interesting points coming out of Jim Emerton's meeting with Jim Jenner. Heres whats Jim Jenner had to say on the future of pigeon racing in the world. "I think the future is mixed but bright. Much depends on what we do in the next decade. In some countries we will see membership growth and continuing escalation in the price of pigeons [although I think the Chinese bubble will eventually burst]. In other areas, such as the UK and USA, participation is dwindling and the membership is ageing. But as the number of fanciers dwindles I've noticed those who remain are more serious about their efforts. However I like to say that the pigeon sport is not dying, it's committing suicide. On both sides of the Atlantic we've wasted time and effort raising money for outside charities when our own sport desperately needs all the legal and marketing muscle possible. We've ignored the linkage between feral pigeons and anti-pigeon regulations. And we are only just now discovering that showing society how positive pigeons can be for children is an avenue to protect our very right to keep birds in our back garden. The amount of bad management of our image by the many national racing organizations charged with furthering the hobby is breathtaking. I say that as a businessman with a background in marketing and media. That said, I'm hopeful. I believe technology will have a profound effect on our hobby. The day is coming when returning race birds will be able to be tracked, in real time, on their way home. The ability to connect all the electronic timing systems of lofts in a race is relatively simple. So we are close to a day when major races can literally be watched online. This technology is almost certain to stimulate some sort of television/internet coverage of our hobby. I can't begin to emphasize the impact that may have on the public's interest in the sport. Yes, it will bring the animal rights people too, but it will definitely attract more people to the hobby. My greatest fear is that we won't balance the growth of the money and gambling side of the racing sport with an equal effort to promote the power of domestic pigeons to bring nature to unnatural places. By that I mean the power of our birds to be a positive force in the lives of the young and old who keep them. If we don't promote that ancient facet of our hobby then we will only be about the money and the birds become simply a tool to win it. As I listen to some of the hysterical comments about million-dollar auctions and one loft races I think of this. The people I respect the least in our hobby are the ones who talk the most about the money." Whats your thoughts??

Me,Ian and Wull would have had good feed out ae it and there would have still been some left It was a good favour she done so a cannae complain