3/12/2006

The birds have been arriving, fast and furious. I have several more left to arrive, but many have arrived, all safe and sound, over the last two weeks. I have had most of them out but have been a bit cautious, as it still gets dark pretty early here during the week. On top of that, we have had some periodic snow, which totally changes the look of the loft, especially from the air.

I have a small team that is able to loft fly, with another small team that spends quite bit of time in the basket. I leave many of them in the basket outside on the weekend and open it up for feeding. They fly like mad to the loft and trap easily when I call them. If we have nicer weather next weekend, they will get a longer chance to loft fly.

Many of the birds have dropped at least one flight. Some I believe have dropped more. I don’t look them all over everyday, but I try to pick up a few now and then to inspect. All are on 20 hours of light.

I sent six birds to the Gulf Coast Classic last week. Hopefully they fly well enough to get my picture on the front of the digest. I have a few more going out this week to the Midwest Convention Race. Next year, our combine is hosting the Midwest.

I was almost ordinanced out of business last week. The city was having a problem with a local fancier, not a member of any racing club that I know. His birds continually perched on the neighbor’s house and caused complaints. While we have a friendly ordinance to this date, the Council was ready to only allow pigeons on land zoned agricultural, with at least five acres.

Luckily for me, the local newspaper had an article on the issue and I was notified of it by a local club member. Springing into action, I was able to contact all of the Council members and Mayor. I think the ordinance will be changed, maybe to the model ordinance as formed by the AU. In any case, it was a close call. The Council did not even know there was such a thing as a Racing Pigeon. At one of the next Council workshop meetings, I will play the condensed version of “Marathon in the Sky” for them and see what I can do to give them a better comfort feeling. With only one complaint in over 13 years, they all agreed that it might be over-kill to change the ordinance so drastically. I will keep you all informed.

I have put a picture of all of the birds that I have received so far on the Loft Inventory page. If you are feeling like you are missing your birds, be sure to click the link and see your babies. If you send them an email, I will even read it to them for you.

My Old Bird Team has been out flying a bit too. I will continue to loft fly them, and hopefully begin road training soon. I also hope to have several young birds on the Training trailer for a toss once in a while. Many of the Old Birds are on eggs; hopefully they will all have enough time to raise at least one youngster per pair.

At least one of the Old Birds has a missing flight on each wing. I hope it grows back in time for the race season. They have been on natural light for over a year, so I am not sure why the fifth flights would be missing from this one bird.