Maybe if they stayed with the others Mike they could have used them as pacemakers?. On a different subject. Do Gordon Bros ever get beaten?MIL wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2025 3:56 pm That's easy enough King because on the day they (and I) weren't good enough
The thing is about the sport.
I read an interesting article on this subject by a guy who made some sort of film about tracking pigeons from a liberation site by plane. The details are sketchy in my head but two things did stick -1 that the birds circled and headed off supposedly to home only to return to the liberation site an hour or so later then continue circling for hours until it got to dusk. The writer surmised that something had interfered with whatever it is pigeons use to navigate. Heavy losses were incurred.
The other point was about how in a blow home tailwind the birds stay high in a bunch with the fittest and fastest gradually pushing out in front. Conversely, with a headwind they stayed low to the ground so hills, mountains, tall trees and buildings etc constantly split and resplit the groups. Depending where birds were in these splits in relation to their home line influenced how they did in the race. As someone commented in this thread, it’s not always the best, fittest pigeon thatwins
The other point was about how in a blow home tailwind the birds stay high in a bunch with the fittest and fastest gradually pushing out in front. Conversely, with a headwind they stayed low to the ground so hills, mountains, tall trees and buildings etc constantly split and resplit the groups. Depending where birds were in these splits in relation to their home line influenced how they did in the race. As someone commented in this thread, it’s not always the best, fittest pigeon thatwins