If there's one bird that's a constant nuisance to the city dweller, it's the common pigeon.
These birds are a mixture of all the different breeds of pigeons.
They're the, uh, the mutt of the species.
And if there's one thing that irritates any of us who call ourselves pigeon fanciers, it's to have one of our pedigree homing pigeons confused with a common pigeon.
The homing pigeon, unlike the common, is a specific and identifiable breed.
This is due in part to the fact that we pigeon fanciers have imposed certain standards of on our birds, much as dog fanciers have with pedigree show dogs.
The homing pigeon is the product of carefully controlled and selective breeding, which emphasizes the physical stamina and homing ability.
And it's this ability to return home from liberation points hundreds and even thousands of miles away that is the basis for the unique sport of pigeon racing.
This is how a pigeon race begins.
Back at the home end of the race, there's not much we can do but wait.
Usually before we come out to the loft, we give our race secretary a call to find out the time of liberation and the weather conditions out at the race station.
With this information, we can usually approximate the time the birds will return.
A good racing pigeon in fair weather and with a little help from a tailwind can fly upwards of 60 miles per hour and make over 600 miles in a single day.
When a homer comes off a race, he's been trained to enter the loft through a special trap.
Sometimes to our consternation, they take their own good time about it and a pigeon isn't officially home until he's inside the loft and clocked in.
Once inside, the flyer catches the bird and removes the race band or counter mark.
Then he puts it into a small capsule and drops it into a race timer.
As he turns the handle, the capsule is sealed inside and the time is stamped on a paper tape.
Later, all the flyers return to the race headquarters where winners are determined.
There's a lot of satisfaction in seeing one of your birds come home from a race because it represents months of breeding and training.
Breeding usually begins in the early spring and the major objective is to mate two good racers and come up with a young bird that is as good, if not better, than the parent bird.
In many respects, pigeon breeding is similar to horse breeding and that the breeders are attempting to build up families of good racers.
Certain families of horses are known as long distance racers, some as sprinters and others as mutters.
Now, in a sense, the same applies to the racing pigeon.
There are the sprinter pigeons that race well up to 300 miles and then there are birds that are more successful on races from 400 to 1 ,000 miles.
Finally, there are the mutters that fly in all types of weather and rough conditions.
After 10 days, the youngsters, as we call them, are banded with a lifetime seamless aluminum band that bears an identifying number which is placed on record with one of the national pigeon organizations to which a flyer may belong.
The youngsters are kept with the parent birds for another 18 days in either the old bird racing loft or the stock loft.
By the time the youngsters are 28 days old, they are moved into the young bird loft and it is at this point that we begin their race training.
Now, many non -flyers assume that you can take a young homer out from the loft some distance, let him go, and he'll return home.
But unless he's been properly trained, the chances are he'll get lost.
Even though racing pigeons have the homing ability bred into them, it's up to us to teach them how to use it.
Therefore, though methods differ, the principal aim in training is to condition the birds for long flights and perfect the homing instinct.
Our first step is to begin the loft training by putting the young pigeons in an outside aviary where they familiarize themselves with their surroundings.
After a day or two, they're let out for short exercise flights in the immediate loft area.
During this time, the flyer teaches them to return to the loft and trap in at his signal.
Finally, we begin a series of training flights which consist of taking the birds out from the loft a mile or two and releasing them to fly home.
With each training flight, the directions are and the distance is increased, four, ten, twenty, anywhere up to a hundred miles or more.
Before each race, we have to choose a limited number of entries.
Now, our selection is based on several factors.
One, of course, is a pigeon's previous race record.
And in the case of young birds, we consider the performances of the pigeons from which the youngsters were bred.
Another factor is the general physical condition of the bird.
We check to make sure that the pigeon isn't missing any of the important flight feathers.
Then we look for a bright sparkle in the eye which indicates that the pigeon is in good health.
Finally, we consider what you might call the bird's psychological attitude.
In other words, what will motivate him to fly back quickly? Eggs in the nest? Going argument with another pigeon? A desire to be in familiar surroundings? These are just some of the things a flyer knows will increase the pigeon's incentive to return home.
Then, when we've made what we hope are the right choices, we head off for the race headquarters.
Every club flies an old and a young bird race schedule.
The old bird races are held in the spring and in the early summer and range from 100 to a thousand miles.
The young bird races begin in the morning.
The race is held on the day before each race and every flyer prepares an entry sheet listing the band number, color, and sex of each pigeon.
While the flyer checks his bird with a race secretary against his entry sheet, a rubber counter mark is stretched on a special machine.
The race secretary records the number of the counter mark on the entry sheet and then the mark is placed on the bird's leg.
After each pigeon is counter marked, it's put into a shipping basket.
When all the flyer's entries have been checked in, the paper tabs carrying the numbers of the counter marks are sealed in an envelope and put away with the entry sheet.
There are two things needed by each flyer before he can enter his birds in a race.
First, he must have what is known as an airline distance survey, and the other requirement is one of these race timers that have been specifically designed for the sport.
Now, the airline survey is the exact distance from the various liberation points to the flyer's loft.
This is determined by an approved independent surveyor who calculates the distance to as close as one one -thousandth of a mile.
The miles are then converted into yards to be used in computing speeds.
The race timer is a highly accurate and relatively inexpensive piece of equipment that is usually set at the same time that the flyers are basketting the birds.
Each timer comes equipped with a paper tape that slides by a stamping mechanism that records day, hour, minute, and second each time the crank is turned.
When the timer is ready, it's synchronized with the master timer and then reassembled.
Along with a high degree of accuracy, the timers have built -in devices to prevent any tampering during the race.
When the lid is closed, a spring is caught so that the timer is opened before the end of the race.
The mechanism is triggered and a hole is punched in the paper tape that can easily be detected during the race tabulation.
The outside latch has been designed so that it can be wired and sealed with the club stand.
When the counter marking is complete and the baskets have been declared closed, they are also wired and sealed and then loaded on trucks, which take them along with baskets from other clubs to the liberation point.
One of the first questions put to a pigeon racer is, what makes the pigeons come home? Well, of course, none of us know.
But most every flyer has at least one theory.
Some maintain that it's the sun that guides the pigeons, and they'll point out that very few birds are lost on bright clear days.
Others believe that the sun is the sun that guides the pigeons.
We know that since each area of the country has its own magnetic influence, the birds get accustomed to that influence and then compensate for the differences and head for the area that has a familiar balance.
However, all that we can really say about this built -in radar is that it is similar to the instinct that you find in the wild ducks and geese that return to the same pond every summer.
And yet, occasionally something happens to homing pigeons, and their instinct fails them temporarily and they become confused and get lost.
When this happens to a large percentage of birds during a race, we call it a smash.
Some of the lost pigeons will turn up weeks or even years later, but others never return.
It's known, however, that a series of storms in the path of flight may scatter and exhaust the birds and force them down.
This is often the reason for a poor return percentage, but so far no one has been able to explain those occasions when the birds fail to return on what we'd normally call a perfect race day.
In these instances, some fliers feel that something as remote as sunspot activity may be the cause, but again this is only a guess.
Usually weather conditions have the greatest influence on the bird's speed, but there are other factors.
Since a bird has been trained to fly only by day, if he is unable to reach home by nightfall, he'll drop down and roost until dawn.
Sometimes the pigeons are prey to hawks or they injure themselves on power lines, yet the instinct to get home is so strong that on many occasions badly wounded birds, barely able to fly, have come home only to die upon entering the loft.
Pigeon racing is full of unknowns and intangibles, and all we can do on a race day is wait and watch.
When the race is called, the fliers return to the race headquarters with their timers and race report sheets.
One of the race secretaries stamps off the timer to the master and then breaks the seal.
The tabulation is a fairly involved process that requires each counter mark to be read off and checked against the fliers report sheet.
Once this has been done, the paper tape is removed from the timer and they begin to figure the last hours, minutes, and seconds from the time of liberation to the time of return for each bird.
The time is converted into minutes and then divided into the number of yards flown to arrive at average speed.
When the tabulation is complete, the flier whose bird made the fastest average speed in yards per minute is declared to win.
The sport of pigeon racing attracts a wide cross section of people.
There are small business owners, professional men, blue collar workers, executives, young boys, retired men, and a lot of women too.
And whether it be the challenge of breeding and training good racers or receiving recognition at the end of the season, there's a great deal of personal satisfaction to be gained from every aspect of the sport.
But as any of us will tell you, the greatest reward for a flier is the thrill of having one of his pigeons come home a winner.
