What can WE change.

[Devo1956]

Whichever way you look at it, we put our trust for others to follow. We can only get the birds race fit, and with all the prep done. The birds are marked to go to the race, then it is out of our hands.

[Andy]

Point proved Andy, you can have all the technology you want but in the end it’s down to the people that have the best interests of the birds first and last that makes the difference
No one can legislate for hawk strikes en route but there’s very little that can be done about that

I agree Bowbroom.
Too many excuses for poor quality officials, and poor pigeons.

[Diamond Dave]

So shall we move on to discuss the problem of CLASHING now.
Does anyone have any ideas on how we can prevent this.
The problem has been around for a long time but even with technology it still seems to affect our y.bird racing.
It seems that with birds going North to South and vice versa and East to West and vice versa and sometimes only a small window of opportunity to liberate it seems somewhat inevitable.
I know that the race controllers do a brilliant job but when there is only a small window it becomes a difficult and thankless task.
Is it more important to get the birds away than hold over nowadays. I have never known our club/fed to have a holdover when it was always a fairly common practise maybe 15 -20 years ago, usually for the weather but now we just put racing back til the next day but if then you only have that short window all the birds will be in the air at the same time.
Could more thought be put into it by staging libs when the weather is good. Maybe going with perhaps east to west between say 6 - 8am and then West to East at perhaps 8 - 10pm and similarly North to South and South to North.
It is the first 2 or 3 y.bird races that are probably the most vulnerable but they are usually fairly short so a 2 hour window for any particular direction would allow them to get home before the opposite direction are even released. Does anyone think that would work or have any other thoughts or comments......

Well Dave, many including yourself will probably not agree with my views on this. I believe ' True clashing' very rarely happens. Now that's not to say birds don't get mixed together. A flock of pigeons from a liberation, even when strung out occupy a very small piece of the sky. Do fanciers really think flocks just happen to meet each other when racing most weeks? Now, when do birds actually get mixed together? Well the main cause and the one many wrongly claim to be 'clashing' is at the liberation point. On certain days you get liberation sites where Feds flying in different directions are at the SAME race point. When this happens I believe birds get mixed when not enough time is given between liberations, I've heard many times libs have happened when birds of the previous lib have not cleared. This can happen also if race points are very close together. Now if the birds are going in the same direction that's better but, your still going to get a bad race because something was wrong at the race point already if the birds failed to clear, if the birds are going in different directions that's just makes the problem even worse. How many times have fanciers had birds reported that are either very close to where they were liberated, or reported by a fancier who was himself racing or racing close to the SAME place your bird was? Now for birds reported many miles away from the point, they were probably ALREADY LOST before they followed another bird, who themselves were probably lost.
Now technology is USELESS. It works for aircraft but is useless for pigeons. Same as GPS TRACKING. It tells you the route the BIRD CHOSE to take, you can learn little from it, because the bird CAN'T be trained to take a different route. These apps that show libs and lines of flights, are very mis-leading, they show a thick line which is totally out of scale. These lines would be miles wide if to scale, and even at the point they cross each other the actual flock could be miles apart. And the actual crossing point is only valid if the CORRECT speed, wind & height was known?
Back to 'clashing' birds in different winds normally fly at different heights, now I've said a race flock takes up a very small piece of sky. Even if a chance meeting with a another flock they'd all most certainly pass each other at different heights.
Pigeons when on route take some splitting up. Every fancier must have see their own team of YBs exercising at home and join another local flock, when they've had enough flying together the vast majority will simply break away and the two packs split like magic, you may have a couple of his and he may have a couple of yours but pigeons within a flock rarely get split.
I was at a lib at Wetherby and watched a single pigeon flying across the lib site, just as it reached the transporter the birds were released right in front of it. I watched in amazement as it flew straight though the entire lib and out the other side. It didn't break its line at all, it's as though it didn't even see them.
I know I've probably not convinced those who believe in 'clashing' but it's something that never bothered me. If you train a bird correctly you should have every faith in it finding it's way home even it meets other pigeons, I always let my YBs out on race days, and even trained them on race days. If there any good, they'll return. If they don't nobody should try to find a reason to justify why they didn't. You can tell yourself it was clashing, BOP, wires ect, but if you don't know for sure your guessing. I lost my fair share of YBs racing, but probably less than most. The last thing I wanted was them reporting. I was lucky I didn't get many reported, the ones I did were rarely by another fancier, they were normally by joe public, picked up flown out. I'd rather a lost bird of mine live out, and return under it's own steam, even if that was many weeks, months or even years which some actually did.

PS if anybody still believes 'clashing' is real. Don't fly in the Nationals, especially YB Nationals. The birds start the race clashed.

King, I don't think I could ever disagree with any of your posts because everything you say makes absolute sense.
However, I would just like to clarify one point that you made above and that is letting y.birds out on a race day.
I do that too But not before they have been trained or ranged to some degree. Would you do it from the off?
I don't think I would advocate that to newbies or ppl just starting out but appreciate that we all do things differently.

[king]

So shall we move on to discuss the problem of CLASHING now.
Does anyone have any ideas on how we can prevent this.
The problem has been around for a long time but even with technology it still seems to affect our y.bird racing.
It seems that with birds going North to South and vice versa and East to West and vice versa and sometimes only a small window of opportunity to liberate it seems somewhat inevitable.
I know that the race controllers do a brilliant job but when there is only a small window it becomes a difficult and thankless task.
Is it more important to get the birds away than hold over nowadays. I have never known our club/fed to have a holdover when it was always a fairly common practise maybe 15 -20 years ago, usually for the weather but now we just put racing back til the next day but if then you only have that short window all the birds will be in the air at the same time.
Could more thought be put into it by staging libs when the weather is good. Maybe going with perhaps east to west between say 6 - 8am and then West to East at perhaps 8 - 10pm and similarly North to South and South to North.
It is the first 2 or 3 y.bird races that are probably the most vulnerable but they are usually fairly short so a 2 hour window for any particular direction would allow them to get home before the opposite direction are even released. Does anyone think that would work or have any other thoughts or comments......

Well Dave, many including yourself will probably not agree with my views on this. I believe ' True clashing' very rarely happens. Now that's not to say birds don't get mixed together. A flock of pigeons from a liberation, even when strung out occupy a very small piece of the sky. Do fanciers really think flocks just happen to meet each other when racing most weeks? Now, when do birds actually get mixed together? Well the main cause and the one many wrongly claim to be 'clashing' is at the liberation point. On certain days you get liberation sites where Feds flying in different directions are at the SAME race point. When this happens I believe birds get mixed when not enough time is given between liberations, I've heard many times libs have happened when birds of the previous lib have not cleared. This can happen also if race points are very close together. Now if the birds are going in the same direction that's better but, your still going to get a bad race because something was wrong at the race point already if the birds failed to clear, if the birds are going in different directions that's just makes the problem even worse. How many times have fanciers had birds reported that are either very close to where they were liberated, or reported by a fancier who was himself racing or racing close to the SAME place your bird was? Now for birds reported many miles away from the point, they were probably ALREADY LOST before they followed another bird, who themselves were probably lost.
Now technology is USELESS. It works for aircraft but is useless for pigeons. Same as GPS TRACKING. It tells you the route the BIRD CHOSE to take, you can learn little from it, because the bird CAN'T be trained to take a different route. These apps that show libs and lines of flights, are very mis-leading, they show a thick line which is totally out of scale. These lines would be miles wide if to scale, and even at the point they cross each other the actual flock could be miles apart. And the actual crossing point is only valid if the CORRECT speed, wind & height was known?
Back to 'clashing' birds in different winds normally fly at different heights, now I've said a race flock takes up a very small piece of sky. Even if a chance meeting with a another flock they'd all most certainly pass each other at different heights.
Pigeons when on route take some splitting up. Every fancier must have see their own team of YBs exercising at home and join another local flock, when they've had enough flying together the vast majority will simply break away and the two packs split like magic, you may have a couple of his and he may have a couple of yours but pigeons within a flock rarely get split.
I was at a lib at Wetherby and watched a single pigeon flying across the lib site, just as it reached the transporter the birds were released right in front of it. I watched in amazement as it flew straight though the entire lib and out the other side. It didn't break its line at all, it's as though it didn't even see them.
I know I've probably not convinced those who believe in 'clashing' but it's something that never bothered me. If you train a bird correctly you should have every faith in it finding it's way home even it meets other pigeons, I always let my YBs out on race days, and even trained them on race days. If there any good, they'll return. If they don't nobody should try to find a reason to justify why they didn't. You can tell yourself it was clashing, BOP, wires ect, but if you don't know for sure your guessing. I lost my fair share of YBs racing, but probably less than most. The last thing I wanted was them reporting. I was lucky I didn't get many reported, the ones I did were rarely by another fancier, they were normally by joe public, picked up flown out. I'd rather a lost bird of mine live out, and return under it's own steam, even if that was many weeks, months or even years which some actually did.

PS if anybody still believes 'clashing' is real. Don't fly in the Nationals, especially YB Nationals. The birds start the race clashed.

King, I don't think I could ever disagree with any of your posts because everything you say makes absolute sense.
However, I would just like to clarify one point that you made above and that is letting y.birds out on a race day.
I do that too But not before they have been trained or ranged to some degree. Would you do it from the off?
I don't think I would advocate that to newbies or ppl just starting out but appreciate that we all do things differently.

Yes Dave your right, I should have said my YBs when I raced didn't go out on race days from the off. But they did do so once they were flying well at home before they ever got trained. Since I stopped racing I've bred very few to keep for myself, most years I don't keep any. This year I've 2 YBs flying out, but these 2 did go out from the off, including race days. They gone missing twice this year for long spells with the youngest gone for over 4hrs once. Now I'm not racing now, I see everyday the same, they go out everyday except in very heavy rain.

ps I actually wrote out a post on the others on your list
3.EXTREME TEMPERATURES
4. FOUR G and 5G
5.SOLAR PANELS
6. SUN SPOT ACTIVITY.
but I didn't save it to draft, and when I was about to post it, I found myself logged out, and I lost it. I'll do it again over the next couple of days. Good luck if you've sent this weekend.

[king]

3.EXTREME TEMPERATURES
4. FOUR G and 5G
5.SOLAR PANELS
6. SUN SPOT ACTIVITY.

Here's my views. If something is thought to be a cause of YB losses, or a cause of homing ability it can't be used conveniently as a cause/excuse when birds fail to return. The sport has for years had old wife's tails, and causes to why fanciers have bad races. From Flying Ants, The Sun & Moon in the sky together, electric power lines, and radar and other electric technology?
So what's the evidence? Well I'm yet to hear any? Flying Ants swarms are triggered by temperature. If that day just coincides when racing is it just that or a cause of losses? Sun & Moon in the sky together. Well the Sun & Moon are ALWAYS in the sky together, even if conditions don't always make seeing them possible. Electric power lines. These are everywhere and increasing, there can't be a race point in the Uk where the birds don't have to cross a line, or in most cases several. Radar and other electric technology again these are everywhere and also increasing. Do any stop birds homing? Well NO. If any of the above was a cause they would affect ALL birds and they don't. Apart from the Ants ALL the others are present 24/7.
EXTREME TEMPERATURES. Well birds race in much hotter Countries than the UK and have done so for years. If well hydrated pigeons CAN cope well with EXTREME TEMPERATURES.
FOUR G and 5G again they are everywhere. Birds still return.
SOLAR PANELS. Again these are everywhere. I've got them on the houses both sides of me. A cause of losses. Again NO Solar Panels are a magnet to Feral pigeons, they love them, they nest under them in their 1000s, if they caused losses, how do they keep returning?
SUN SPOT ACTIVITY. Probably on first glance the one which actually could make sense. The late 'Bilco' was a great supporter of this as a cause of losses. The BHW used too, maybe still does publish the Solar flare/K Index number for the week ahead. The problem with this though is the SUN is 93 million miles away and from that distance the WHOLE UK is the SAME tiny spot. Any influence a high K Index number/ solar flare may have in the UK would EFFECT the WHOLE UK. The problem though and one Bilco could not explain is how one Fed could have a bad race with a high K number but other Fed just a few miles away didn't have a bad race.

The bottom line is if ANYTHING thing is see as a CAUSE. It has to AFFECT ALL PIGEONS and not just the ones that don't return home. That said I myself have no proof that some of the above may cause losses, but if a fancier wants to reinforce the homing ability in their birds, DON'T breed off birds that come home in a box. The fact you are losing the birds with a weak homing ability, is actually doing half the job already.

[Rdhd Danny]

@king totally agree also why do we not all see losses I've had one race with big losses on the day majority worked back I've lost 6 in total this year and one death from bop the day after return, Sunday just over 1k birds was sent in our fed at start of the yb season it's wax 3k sent crazy losses

[Devo1956]

I have to say, all that King has wrote is true. But I still feel it is down to you, the keepers of the birds. We could go on for the rest of the year, and still come up with the same excusses. I still feel the need for change is in your own lofts, the timing of breeding needs to be planned. To give the youngsters time to prepare, for training and racing. Far to many youngsters are rushed through the stage of training, which leads to stress in the loft. And could result in young bird sickness. These young birds are your future racing birds, the development of these youngsters is so important. So from day one routine, routine, routine. Training does not have to be at far distances.
Once your young birds are flying around the home, then they disappear for 1 hour or 2. after a week start puting them on the road. I would rather have 2 x 12 mile daily trainers. But some flyers go up to 40 mile trainers. we are all different in the way we run our lofts. The main thing to me is observation, and daily routine in your loft environment. But that is my view. Prepare well, ot be prepared to fail.