Bilco - RP Column 15/01/2010

[willie reynolds]

RP Column - 15/01/10

It's Getting Better!

Forty two years ago, TRUE Magazine (USA) published a five page article on racing pigeons, highlighting the problem of smashes. It pointed out that although this was not a new problem, it was happening with increasing regularity, so much so that clubs were falling apart due to ever increasing losses. Now, forty years ago the USA were in the throes of a boom in mobile phones, way ahead of us here in the sticks. We had our problem beginning a few years later. Obviously the wealthy mobile phone merchants aren't going to let go of money making scheme so we have to put up with it, but there's hope. As with all things Mother Nature copes, and she is beginning to produce pigeons with homing powers as great as any in the past, and though we are still having heavy losses every year, I begin to feel confident that things are getting better. As with Myxomytosis in rabbits, an immune generation was born, and from them successive generations continue to breed families that are resistant to Myxy and now, we are told, rabbit populations are well on the way back to the numbers we were used to in pre-mid 60's. What this means if our race returns start improving is that sooner or later we shall be back to the old days, when even families could get home from 50 miles away.

Are We Being Conned?

Last weekend I bought four 25kg bags of corn at £6 a bag. It was described as a resting mix and was made up of beans, wheat and barley. The grains were fat and clean and as a post-moult winter feed was quite sufficent to maintain the birds. I mix in 25% of Poultry Grower's Pellets with it and the birds look well on it. Yet I hear fanciers paying £11 and £12 for 20kg bags of Branded pigeons feeds with not much more in variety or quality to recommend them in preference. While I think of it, if you see wheat in your mixture, always check to see if it has a blue tip to it, if it has that is fungus, a mycotoxin and will upset your birds digestion if it eats much of it.

Patrick Bros, St Truiden.

Thought I'd say hello to old Steve, getting near Christmas, so rang him up. He doesn't say a lot, but sounded chuffed when I asked him how he had got on during the season. He finished a decent season with 1st and 10th Provinicial, 32nd National and 59th International from a field of 18,354 birds at Perpignan. He flies roughly 565 miles so pretty good going, considering that he is competing against the might in Belgium, Germany, Holland and France.

My old friend Henri Van Neste also had a few in the result, his first one being 28th Open Belge National and 53rd International, he flies about 547 miles Perpignan.

So 2010 is Here, Happy New Year!

With a sharp touch of weather, something we have been needing for many years, the New Year came in with the usual telephone contacts from world wide, USA, Australia, France, Belgium and of course UK. I got to bed at 0240 in the end but was up and out of it by 0700 again because if I don't get those nestboxes finished there won't be any nesting this year. The new YB section looks fine, but needs a new Sputnik which P&J Lofts assure me will be waiting on their stand at Blackpool when I get there, courtesy of Fred Bloor who is giving me a lift this year. The days when I motored 700 miles are long gone, and now I let the youngsters do the work. I know Fred isn't a youngster by any means, but he is compared to me.

Just looking at the calendar reminded me that this column Bilco's Bulletin has been appearing in one or another members of the Fancy Press for the past 43 years. I kicked it off with the Gazette in 1967, then after 7 years and a barney with the late SWE Bishop moved to The Racing Pigeon and remained with it for the next 15 years. Then, having been offered the editorial chair of the Gazette returned to the Gazette until December 1994 when I was shoe-horned out by the RPRA with less than a mnth's wages in lieu because I wouldn't move to Welshpool for my last 6 months. Two more years with the RP followed by a time with Pigeon sport until they folded, then for the hell of it I started writing for the BHW just to keep my hand in. I left them and came back here with Lee to the RP. I wrote a couple of books on pigeons in the meantime, and another two on the other pursuits elsewhere, plus a few short stories for the newspapers. It keeps me out of mischief I suppose.

BBC AGM

If attendance is any guide, then the Club is at the top of a long, long slope. I have little doubt that the weather influenced things markedly, but an attendance of three members, pus the (very) full committee of 16 did little to reassure me that the membership cared much about its future. I was a member of that committee in 1986, before I retired to Portugal, and it then numbered about 8 if memory severs me rightly. Now it is 16. The main committee business seemed to me (as a spectator due to the cold and my early arrival, I don't think I was very welcome as nobody greeted me with any warmth!) to be centred round the race programme, and it seemed to be going very well. Another race has been added to the card (Vine) and prize monies have been increased, along with entry costs and subscriptions.

My short tenure as Press Officer came to a close as I was forked out of the job without a word of thanks or offer of phone costs, and one member even asked me if I had contributed anything during the previous year since they hadn't seen anything. However, my successor (Mrs Hazel Hooper) will have the advantage of all the phone numbers and contacts to do the job better than I did, so no harm done. I shan't miss the hassle. A second race marking venue at Penkridge, Staffs (OIC Richard Spooner) may be available this year, but the offer to complete, up and running marking station at Walkern, halfway between Stevenage and Edgeware has, so far, aroused no excitement. If no requests to the secretary to use it are made then it won't happen. I had an hour's crawl through the snowy lanes to go, so left early. I wish the club every success.