Young Bird Returns

[mealybar]

Whats up with yb returns? It seems that if you dont get them on the day you never see them again. Whats different these days thats stopping them coming through? A few years ago I had a bird home on the Sunday of the race to win the club the following week, no chance of repeating that hey :X

 

mealybar

[THE FIFER]

SEEMS THE SAME ALL_OVER,  BUT SOME GET GOOD RETURNS AND OTHERS BAD, WHERE DO ALL THE BIRDS GO, NOT MANY REPORTED OR COMING BACK IN STRAY CENTRE.

[Guest]

your spot on mealybar,our race yesterday was from 90 miles,i sent 17, only 8 home on the day and nothing today(sunday. it seems some of the convoy goes north for home,& the rest head south into england.trouble is nowadays very few seem to get reported,long gone are the days when you bred twenty,raced the full programme and still had eighteen left!

[THE FIFER]

OUR RACE YESTERDAY WAS FROM OTTERBURN 76ML SENT 9 GOT 2, SOME OTHERS HAD POOR RETURNS BUT OTHERS HAD GOOD, WHATS WRONG

[mealybar]

Its got me stumped. I honestly dont think anything to the mobile phone mast theory, but what can it be? Surely not all these birds we breed now are rubbish? Does anyone still look at the K-Factor, I found that to be some correlation to my losses last year, but havent checked this year :-/

 

Got a NW pigeon in tonight, they were at Scotch Corner on Saturday werent they?

[Guest]

dear fifer i think it could be clashing,if it were just the time in between libs at sites you would think that if the birds were dragged to other areas of scotland we would get some of them working home.over recent years my experience is that if you dont get them within an hour or two of the leading birds you just dont get them or not many

[Guest]

mealybar,n/west were at otterburn on sat, this is the fed i fly in!

[mealybar]

3489 i think the ring number is, she'll get a good feed for a few days then offered the chance to continue her journey, unless shes yours!! (think its a hen!)

[Guest]

mealybar is the ring no   su05nw3489 if it is there is no chance of it getting home under its own steam from wher you live.secretary mrs. j. graham 01324-861596 if this helps.

[THE FIFER]

WHAT TIME DID THEY LIB BILLY WE (FIFE FED) WENT AT 10am, AND THE KINGDOM AT 1045, FROM OTTERBURN

[Guest]

fifer we north west liberated at 10-30 from otterburn!

[Guest Jim R Ramsay]

Hi All,

        Ayrshire Fed were at Kelso on 30/7/05, 1,851, birds were liberated, at 2-50pm, to the West Coast it is 93 mls,Birds timed on the day, 48,only, a few working back over the past week, Disaster of a Race, on this race we couldn,t blame clashes or not enough time between Fed,s as we were the only Fed on site that day who were liberated,all other Feds were held over, due to condition,s.  We sent 18 Hens, timed three on the day and have had 2 reported in England.

                             Jim.

[maddy706]

Our birds were at Scotch Corner . Birds got up at 9.15 We still waitin on 32, only had 2 reported.  1 in Leeds  ands the other only up road from us .Bad returns for all i think

[GREENGRASS]

there were a number of feds at otterburn on saturday and from the information i have heard some had great racing and others were not so lucky. our fed glaggow liberated at 11am(91 miles to me) and had a great race with returns at 90% plus personally waiting on 1 from 35 sent. renfrewshire went just after us and had a much slower race with returns slow to start with but got better as the afternoon went on. forth and clyde went after us also and they had a sticky race also. midland fed were at lockerbie again with mid lothian i think and again got it hard with poor returns. me i hate lockerbie as a lib site. it is hard to explain why there are so many losses and poor races as the weather was ok well all be it a north west wind which with natural birds does not help them as they will struggle if they have to face it. i dont think we are all breeding rubbish but we are breeding far to many doos. you hear it in the clubs all the time, "yes you need 50 youngsters to start with if you want a yearling team" again the debate of quantity versus quality.  clashing could be an issue but really should not be as the technology we have at our disposal is unlimited. a quick glance at the forum on a fri night or sat morn would tell any conveyor or race controller which organisation is where. i dont think we are far enough down yet in distance to be crossing any english feds so could be the k-factor. prehaps mealybar could explain more to us on that one. [face=Arial][/face]

[Guest shadow]

our fed lincolnshire is having the same problems two races now from huntingdod very poor retuns birds coming all day £hrs plus to cover 88 miles Same again this week came a bit faster but still in one's or two's  we used to get the in big bunches and had to try and make the drop uot of the crowd not any more sent 15 on sat had 3 back by clocks. some more waiting when I got back. one on sunday, but still 5 missing. started with 50 y/b down to 15 by the start of racing and NOT ONE Reported even though the are wing stamped and carry address rings I'd be better off racing frogs at least they may stop in the pond. Onwards and upwards.

[Guest]

I think it is all down to training, as ive had twenty five tosses (all at 5am to miss clashing with other batches), 5 at 10 mile, 5 at 20 mile, 5 at 30 mile and the rest at 40 mile with two single ups and didnt lose any training, my first race i only downed 2 out of 27 in a very strong north west head wind, and a bloke flying local to me only had a few tosses at 10 mile and he is still waiting for 22 out of 40!!!

[mealybar]

I'll give the seccy a ring tonight for the NW pigeon, cheers billymac.

Got another stray in today, GB S ring, got a telephone ring on so I'll be on the blower.

 

Surprisingly enough I got one from Saturday today; maybe they are milling about still and will turn up eventually

 

The K-Factor is something to do with geomagnetic emissions from the sun, I havent read the article in a while but heres the link: http://www.pigeonbasics.com/articles/article2.html

[birdbrain]

i see stray racing pigeons all over my area. i think this is the reason why many racing pigeons dont return. they pair up with streeters!!!

[birdbrain]

i've got some good pedigree birds coming back first!

[MsPigeon]

What ever the problem is with YB returns it seems to be affecting them the world over. I am from the US and have heard the same kinds of reports. Myself... included. We had a devastating training race from 80+ miles, most flyers getting less than half their birds back. I sent 73 and had only 4 home in race time and only got a total of 24 birds back. Only one was reported found and it was about 25 miles west of the release point and so beat the people that found it could walk up and pick it up. It had to have gone somewhere else first to be so worn out. Very few were found but some of other members were reported north. Same thing here, perfect weather, no other libs to get mixed up with, birds well trained, healthy and ready to race. What’s up????? What ever it is we can't see it. Maybe it's defense systems; with all the terrorists crap maybe there is some kind of surveillance going on that effects the homing ability. I just know that I have NEVER before experienced such losses in one giant swoop. It really makes me think twice about this hobby and what I'm doing to those birds. I have been in it for over 26 years and this just makes me sick, discouraged and devastated...

 

[Guest shadow]

sbelbin do you think that the fanciers that are losing their pigeons have not trained them enough just because of your personal observations mine, and a lot of my clubs fanciers have been been trained hard early morning in fact at various timesof the day up to 50 miles 4 days per week and they are still losing them in fact on saturday every body was 50% missing at clocks. I had one back sunday and got one today that has been  missing for 4 weeks.Don't count your chickens before they are hatched .Just pray you do not get a sticky race the season is still young. Onwards and upwards. :)

[Guest Doostalker]

We had a bad race on Sunday 31 July from Otterburn, and from what I hear it was the same all over the UK with some lofts doing well but the majority counting their losses. Sat 06 August was Otterburn 2 and again is was a slow race with lots of birds not back on the day. I dropped 4/19, but some fared much worse. Lots of theories are going around from YB sickness to Sun spot activity. If the same is being experienced all over the UK and also in the USA perhaps Ms Pigeon has got a point. Anyone who has passed GCHQ and seen the amount of masts and radio equipment there couldn't be blamed for thinking that if there has been a massive increase in  microwave security comms traffic it might be having an effect.

[THE FIFER]

REGARDING THE PHONE MASTS EFFECTING THE BIRDS, WHAT ABOUT THE MANY WHICH MAKE IT HOME? DOESE THE MASTS NOT EFFECT THEM, OR ARE THEY MAYBE TAKING A DIFFERENT ROUTE AND MISSING, THE WAVES, AND YET SURELY THESE WAVES MUST BE ALL OVER SO AS TO BE ABLE TO USE UR PHONES,

[Guest]

dear fifer ,you beat me to it with your input,but in addition to what you say with which i agree totally do you notice that generally no matter how bad a race it has been returns wise,that the leading birds are nearly always on time or even doing higher velocities than expected.

[Guest valiant]

SENT 38 TO SCOTCH CORNER GOT 25 HOME ALL WING STAMPED AND ADDRESS RINGS NONE REPORTED ??