With the conditions as they were I had resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't likely to be in the frame and that the spoils would go to one of our two most westerly fliers.
The birds were liberated at 7am in no wind, it was very still at home too and already very warm and humid. Optimistically I thought the birds could potentially be here between 10 and half past but more realistically expected them between half 10 and 11. As always I was set up and waiting in plenty of time, as usual 10.30 came and went with out a feather lol
Our Daughter and Grandaughters had arrived by now but were told by Grampa that he was waiting for pigeons so wouldn't be playing lol
At around 10.45 I saw a Gay pied pigeon coming in high from the West, definitely not one I expected to see first, she circled a couple of times before folding her wings and dropping down onto the drop board. She wasted no time trapping and was on the clock at 10.48, shortly after I two more birds arrive from the South, one was mine the other a stray, my bird trapped fairly well and the stray took a few moments before heading off for home. I had several birds arrive over the next half an hour and with them were a fair few strays, as it was so warm and that I'd clocked in already I decided to put a bowl of water on the drop board. As I'd hoped each of the strays gratefully had a drink before heading on their way, I always like to think that other fanciers would treat my birds with the same kindness.
I had a complete turn around of arrivals this week as none of the birds that had been coming well for me in previous weeks were among my early ones, birds were arriving all afternoon and by the time I took my clock out of the loft I had 23/34 home. I had another two before I went to the club and one more when I got home so at close of play had 26/34. As I said in Andy's post our returns were indifferent with some members getting all home and others a few missing, most members had birds arriving all through the day but amazingly one member had all of his 19 home within 15 minutes
He is one who trains his birds very hard all through the season. As predicted this member, Mr Alan Still took the top spot followed by Alan Akemenkalns, these two also took the first 9 positions in the Fed so well done to them.
Alan Still also won the pools, the £50 nom and had a tickle in the fed breeder buyer, Lance Gunn from Southwick was 10th fed and took the first 3 breeder buyer positions with Alan picking up the 4th prize, an excellent result for the L&G Gunn partnership. It just shows you how these birds do split, Lance is one of the more central fliers in the Fed with their loft being 20miles further to the East than Alan's loft !!
Time wise I was well behind the winners but ended up being the 3rd member to clock in, the result doesn't really give a true picture as we only include the first 6 birds from each member.
I had 4 more birds home on the Monday, one of these absolutely shattered, he still hasn't fully recovered yet
I had one back on Tuesday that had been in for some R&R as it she had a telephone ring on, this is the first time I have seen this on all my years in the sport. I sent a message to the fancier concerned, he is a young fancier, the bird had gone into him in Slough very tired (not sure if that was Sunday or Monday) so he fed and watered her and left her to make her way home so many thanks to Tomasz Wisniewski. With one more bird turning up Wednesday I've ended up just the two short , neither of these are a complete surprise as one was missing 3 weeks from his first race and was next day last week, the other is a bit more dissapointing as although he has been very hit and miss he is a beautiful bird and was my first bird last week but that's young bird racing for you. One more race to go and that's another season done an d dusted, all the best.
I always like to think that others would do the same for my birds.