The Sport of Homing Pigeon Racing
The lessons I have learned from my lifelong interest of racing homing pigeons have been profound. “Racing Pigeons?” you say. “What? Well, now I’ve heard it all!” As a pigeon enthusiast, I have heard the comments before. No problem, I’ll explain.
As a kid, my father earned a merit badge for the Boy scouts by raising and racing homing pigeons. He has had pigeons most of his life. My brothers and I joined in his hobby as young boys. Their interest in the birds waned, but mine is stronger then ever. It’s something that my two sons now look forward to doing with me. I am glad to see the generational connection with my family because of the birds.
Pigeon racing is a sport that is extremely competitive, and because it is, it has always been something that has brought our family closer together. We shared the duties of training, cleaning, and feeding the birds among the four of us working hard for that extra advantage so that the birds performed on race day was always our goal. We would fight over who would get to let the birds out or feed them, and we especially enjoyed waiting for the birds return from races on Sundays. We’d plan our days around the estimated arrival times. This tradition continues as my wife and sons share in this same customs at my home now. It’s a great way to have the family together on a weekend. In this day and age of fractured families, television, video games, and electronics, it’s nice to have my boys outside either helping me with the birds or together waiting for them to return from the races. It’s something they enjoy, and it gets them out of the house away from the many distractions of today’s modern world. Plus we’re together! That’s cool!
Pigeon racing is all based on speed. We call them “Thoroughbreds of the Sky.” Much thought (and sometimes money) goes into developing the perfect racing/flying machine. Like thoroughbred racing horses, people develop genetic qualities in their pigeons that help to make them more adept at flying fast (sprint pigeons) for the shorter races (100 to 300 air miles), or flying consistently (marathoners) for the longer races (400 to 600 air miles). As racing pigeons have evolved, and the smartest and strongest have advanced, the sport of pigeon racing has become a sport that has progressed into a highly technical hobby. Sprint pigeons have been clocked at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour! Marathon pigeons have consistently flown 600 air miles in one day! Amazing when you think about it!
There is a tremendous amount of preparation that takes place to ready the birds for their racing season. Many pigeon fanciers put a lot of time, effort, and money into breeding the right birds together to create the perfect young bird. The young birds are acclimated to their loft (the building the birds live in), fed, trained, medicated, and cared for in preparation for the fall race season. Homing pigeons are appropriately named because they have an “innate” instinct to return to their home. Once that love of their home is developed, the birds can be trained to return from distant locations to their loft, to their home. Training is vital to the birds. Training methods vary, but I like to start mine at about a mile away and get mine out to at least 50 air miles from home before the first race. It familiarizes them with their surroundings and get them acclimated to flying back to their nest box. It’s this instinct that allows the pigeon to perform. They love to fly, and they love to return to their sanctum. This combination allows us to race our birds in competitive events, the races.
Once the birds are bred, raised, trained, and brought to the perfect combination of good health and fitness, they are ready to begin their first racing season in the fall of their first year. Each bird is fitted with an electronic band on one of their legs which identifies the bird electronically. This electronic band serves as a fingerprint for the bird. A microchip records the bird’s number, year of birth, and club initials. Each has a different ID distinguishing it from any other pigeon.
The day before each of the races, the pigeon fancier chooses his best birds to enter into the race. He selects his birds and brings them to the pigeon club, along with all of the other pigeon flyers in the club. Each flyer records the birds being entered into the race into the race database. Once recorded, the birds are put into special cages that fit securely onto the truck. There are a group of clubs located all over Southern and Central Maine and New Hampshire. The truck travels around to all of the clubs and picks up the birds. Once all of the birds are collected, the truck driver travels to the race station, or release point, with the birds in tow. At a certain time on race day, the person in charge of authorizing the release of the birds calls the truck driver and advises him to release the birds. The truck driver will report the weather conditions at the release point. If it is raining, foggy, or if the wind is blowing at high speeds (in the wrong direction), the birds are held for better weather. If the sun is shining and the weather is clear, the birds are released. At that point, the race is on!
At home, the pigeon flyers are notified of the release time and the conditions at the race station. This gives the members an idea for the time of arrival of their birds. The release of the birds from the longer distances gets quite complicated due to the distance between the race station and the individual lofts back in Maine and New Hampshire. As the birds arrive home, they are electronically clocked. As they enter the loft upon arrival, they walk across an electronic pad which “stamps” their time of arrival. The microchip in their special electronic band automatically records the arrival time. The speed the pigeon flew involves the calculation of the amount of time it took to fly the race and the distance the bird flew. All of the lofts are at different locations, so we use GPS to figure our exact location on the face of the Earth. With that info, we can determine the exact distance from the release point to each persons loft. The bird that has the fastest yards per minute speed is the winner! There is a trophy or a plaque and a lot of gratification when your trained pigeon wins first place or finishes near the top!
There are usually eight races during young bird season in the fall ranging from 100 to 300 miles. In the spring during the old bird season, races range from 100 to 600 miles. The old birds are a combination of the previous year’s young birds, and the young birds from years before.
Persistence, dedication, training, good health and care are all ingredients that a good pigeon fancier needs to incorporate into his hobby of homing pigeon flying. It’s really a lesson that we can take with us in everything we do in life. It’s a great family sport that has kept my family together all week long. That’s the gift the birds have given to us.
