Mr Yorkie

Yorkshire & Lincs NR Combine - Thurso - 5.50am Fresh NNW Wind getting up all the time at Thirsk although currently got some south in it which will help the Scottish birds on their way Good luck to everyone racing today

Yep -winners include Dovey, Icicle and Frostie!

Found by a non fancier in Thirsk, now with local fancier. Ring registered to rpra but wondered if anyone on here knew the owner?

Mixed bag on north road from Fraserburgh - winning vel in our club 1019, 988 took second. Some fanciers have good returns, others poor - 4/14, 3/10 etc. It was windy with us at Thirsk and understand it was stronger in Scotland so assume it was the wind that halted them?

Thirsk - still chilly, high cloud sun breaking through. Very light north west wind

Yorkshire North Road Fed 6.30am Berwick, Light WNW

YNRFed Alnwick up at 7.45

yorkshire north road fed alnwick

Yorkshire north road fed up at 1130 from seaham

chucking it down in Thirsk!

yorkshire north road fed 715 fresh wsw from dunbar. told the scotch at ripon are waiting

yorkshire north road fed 715 wsw from dunbar. we have been told that the scotch birds at ripon are waiting.

Dunbar for the birds of the Yorkshire North Road Fed, Hull Fed and North and East Yorks. If any Scottish lads would like the details of our Race Controller to pass on to their own Controllers do let me know.

I'm sorry I have to disagree. Pigeon racing is an old time sport and whilst yes we have to enocurage the youngsters to get involved I think you'd be very lucky to get everyone using a dedicated liberation website. The UNC website is a prime example of this - whilst a couple of years ago it had a good following it's now seeing only a few posts a week and its hit and miss as to if lib times get posted. In our Fed I could count on my hands the number of fanciers who use the internet and the likelihood of one of these people taking on the controllers job is slim - no-one ever wants to do it as it is. The guy doing it has been doing it for years and as I said has literally hundreds of contacts up and down the country who he speaks to when the pigeons will be passing over. It's allowed some great friendships to be developed as well. It would be ridiculous to say he couldn't do the job as he doesn't own never mind know how to use a computer. My Dad's had pigeons since the 60's and again couldn't switch a PC on but that doesn't mean he'd give clubs bad racing if he was controller. Perhaps in 20 years time if there's still a sport more could be done online - I often try search for live webcams of places onroute to see what the weathers like but costs mean these are few and far between. I have nothing against setting up a website in principal but think it wouldn't get the usage you would expect - how many people actually post lib times on here each week? There's certainly not every club in the country nor does every member log on to report their own local conditions. I hate seeing animals suffer including lost racing pigeons but I think some fanciers need to look closer to home as to why their birds aren't homing instead of looking to blame others.

Out of the racing fraternity there will only be a very small percentage with internet access and I know for a fact of 3 Fed's locally of which none of the race controllers have the internet. And I have to say rightly so. I am sat here at the moment and the 'current observation' on the met office is sunshine but in reality it's weather fit only for ducks. I would prefer that the person incharge of my pigeons picked up the telephone and spoke to people along the line of flight to get ACCURATE UP TO DATE current weather conditions. Our controller has a book full of names of people he's got to know over the years many of whom are fellow controllers so one simple phone call is a benefit to both people. The internet, especially on a weekend isn't constantly updated and can't always be taken as gospel. Perhaps that's why some clubs do have losses as people haven't picked up the phone?

But what about the race controllers who don't use the internet?

I spoke to our race controller at 630 yesterday morning and he was continually trying to ring the numbers published in the BHW for the scottish feds which would be enroute from our racepoint in Berwick. He succeeded in speaking to some but not all and those that he did speak to said they would wait to lib their scottish birds on board until our birds from berwick had cleared. It perhaps seems that they did not keep to their word. It is no good if feds give the BHW/RPRA contact numbers which are not in use or being answered as this makes the controllers job even harder. Its a thankless job as it is and while we are quick to critise there are never any hands raised at our AGM saying they will take on the job.

We raced from Berwick yesterday racing back to North Yorkshire libbed at 715 and had a good race. In 1999 our Fed tried racing up the 'middle' of the country rather than sticking to the coast and only raced one or two seasons on that route due to losses and the lib sites. I went with my Dad to Hexham and although it was open at the racecourse where the birds were libbed there were countless valleys for the pigeons to chose from. Especially for young birds it must be a minefield and one mistake could spell disaster. Therfore we went back to Seaham, Whitley Bay, Alnwick (which isn't on the coast), Berwick, Dunbar, Perth, Fraserburgh, Thurso and Lerwick as the race programme ( we tried Hexham, Hawick and St Boswells in the 1999 season).

Our race controller was told that the scots birds would wait for the yorks pigeons to go before libbing. they shouldn't really have clashed with the wind as it is - the north roads were hedge hopping whilst the south roaders were sky high.

Yorks North Road went at 715 from Berwick - good race - done just over 40mph but very fresh wind here

won with a 10 year olf from berwick won with a 10 year old

just go to the doctors and say you've got flu like symptons

YNRF pigeons up from Alnwick 12.10 light northerly

Waiting for lib from Alnwick - fine in Thirsk

Great with old birds, not always so with young birds. Our fed covers a large area with the longest flyers about 50 miles further south than the northern most ones. It isn't always fair on them when their birds have another hour or so's flying to do at such a late time in the day. The later birds will almost certainly end up with a night out.