RACING PIGEON NEWS ISSUE 265

Welcome issue 265

In This Issue:

Race Horses of the sky

A True Champion
This little pigeon

'Race Horses of the sky'.
By Robert Kelly-Goss - The Daily Advance

The cooing sound of about 100 pigeons carries softly through the air behind Charlie Jones’ Camden County home. Behind his house is a coop that houses the pigeons, birds that will race hundreds of miles before they return home.

Jones has been keeping homing pigeons since he was about 14, back in 1953. When he worked for J. Holland Webster in Weeksville, Jones began to learn how to handle these birds.

“I went to work for him and he had the pigeons,” says Jones, a retired City of Elizabeth City employee. “I helped him with (the pigeons).”

Eventually, Webster would set Jones up with pigeons and a coop, and teach him how to race the birds. Racing the birds is what it’s all about for Jones.

Over the years Jones has cultivated quite a collection of these racing pigeons. They are not, he emphasizes, the fat and dirty “common pigeon” you see in the parks.

“They are the race horses of the sky,” Jones says.

These are sleek, strong birds and they can cost as much as $1,500 to $2,500 a bird — he breeds his, however.

Racing the pigeons can also run into big money for the winners. While Jones says he doesn’t compete in the bigger races, he points to one that will award the first place winner a $160,000 purse.

In a whitewashed coop, Jones has his birds comfortably housed. They each have a cubby for their nests, a run where they all congregate and plenty of space to move around.

The birds’ feathers are smooth and silky. Some are gray, some are black or brown and there are solid white pigeons as well — those are easy prey for hawks, Jones says.

Jones takes a pigeon in his hands, fans its wings and counts the feathers. He does the same with the tail feathers, commenting that all are intact and that is important since those feathers will take a bird up to 600 miles in any given race.

The birds are not named, but each pigeon has a band with a specific number strapped to its leg. The bands have electronic components that can be read by a scanner inside the coop.

Jones is a part of the Seaport Pigeon Flyers in Virginia. He races with this group against other pigeons.

In the event of a race, he meets a conveyor truck and loads his birds along with other competitors. The truck then takes the pigeons to a designated start point and releases them.

They then use their natural instincts to return to their coops. They are judged on best time.

When the birds return from a race, Jones explains, they return to the coop and the scanner records the time of their arrival. He will take that scanner to a designated judging station where the times are loaded into a computer and tallied.

His birds have flown in races up to 600 miles.

A brief history of the homing pigeon:

* Egyptians and Persians used carrier, or homing, pigeons as far back as 3,000 years ago.
* Pigeons were used to announce the winners of the ancient Olympic games.
* The Republic of Genoa used pigeons along its Mediterranean Sea watchtowers.
* In 1860, founder of Reuter press agency, Paul Reuter, used pigeons to deliver news and stock prices in Europe.
* The outcome of the Battle of Waterloo was delivered to England via pigeon.
* It is believed that the first regular airmail service was in New Zealand, using pigeons, beginning in 1896.
* Pigeons were used in both World Wars. One pigeon named Cher Ami was awarded the French Croix de guerre for heroic service during World War I. Pigeons played a key role in the invasion of Normandy during World War II, as well as other operations where radio silence was necessary.
* Carrier pigeons were used as recently as 2002 in India to provide communication services in the event of a natural disaster.

A True Champion
Red Danial And his Dynasty

1st Open Peterborough, 1st Open Sleaford, 1st Open Sleaford, 1st Open Retford, 1st Open Berwick, 1st Open Essex & Suffolk Fed 4,132 birds, competing in six Open races winning 6 x lsts. Also won:1st Beverley, 1st Retford, 1st Sleaford, 1st Retford, 1st Sleaford, 1st Beverley, 1st Beverly, 1st Sect B Essex & Suffolk Fed 3,312 birds, 1st Sect B Essex & Suffolk Fed 2,633 birds, 1st Sect B Essex & Suffolk Fed 1,853birds,1st Beverley Essex & Suffolk Fed 3,148 birds. 1st Stour Valley Fed 1,204 birds, 1st Peterborough Colchester Championship Club, 4th Essex & Suffolk Fed Beverley 4,221 birds. Also 4th Essex & Suffolk Fed Beverley 2,191 birds, 5th Essex & Suffolk Fed Beverley 4,428 birds, 6th Essex & Suffolk Fed Beverley 3,318 birds. Only raced till two years of age then retired to stock. In 23 competitions entered he won a remarkable 19 x 1st prizes. He is sire, grandsire, great grandsire winner after winner, generation after generation.

WORLD CLASS RACER-PRODUCER

As you can see we soon realised that we possessed a bird of exceptional and special ability. Little did we realise his breeding accomplishments would surpass his racing achievements, and retiring him to stock at two years of age was the best decision we have ever made. It was our aspiration and goal to try and establish a genetically multi-winning family of our own based around him. This we feel we have established. But only after years of selective breeding, and maybe just as importantly being very critical and selective with the birds representing us in the racing section. We feel the strength and depth of winninq genes in this family, make this family capable of producing winners at most levels of competition!

This family has been created and blended over the last 15 years. During this period it has brought us great excitement, enjoyment, and satisfaction. To list the winners descended from him would be an impossible task. His ability to pass on his winning genes has been prolific. These pages will give a small but informative insight for you the fancier to make up your own mind about the ability of this remarkable pigeon. We would never dare say or suggest that he may be the best racer/producer in his lifetime. For in our opinion no one person has the best for very long, some just have better than others on the day. The reasons being, evolution combined with nature is ever shaping, always creating. However, we do believe that this family is better than most at producing good honest racing pigeons, something we are all striving to achieve.

Racing and breeding pigeons has been our passion for over 30 years. It has given Linda and myself great pleasure and it has enabled us to make many friendships and acquaintances. One such friend is Richie Ryder from the Wirral. So much so, that we decided to form a partnership in 2004. Richie now has specially selected stock, breeding in his stock lofts. Prior to our becoming partners, Richie's ability as a stockman had been well documented in the sport, and testimonials could be found in all areas of the media. Linda and Richie are responsible for the stock birds and the breeding plans. My major focus is on the racing side and the progeny testing of our fabulous “Red Daniel” family. - Keith Turner.

This little pigeon
BY: BECKY CRUM, Herald Reporter

Mother Mae’s Kitchen got an unexpected guest on Jan. 4. David Munoz, son of Marvin and Mae, stopped by the restaurant and when he approached the back door he noticed a pigeon huddled by the door stoop that looked frozen.

“I thought he was dead at first. He was cold and curled up. I got closer to him and I saw he was barely moving. I called my dad to see what I should do with him,” David said.

Marvin Munoz told his son to put the pigeon in a box and see if he could thaw him to help him live. It was ten below zero outside.

“I got a Frito Lay box and slid it by him. He went into the box. He had a tag on his leg so I knew if he was tagged, he must belong to someone. I took him to my parents house,” David said.

Marvin Munoz said that night they gave the pigeon some birdseed and water.

“At first he wouldn’t eat or drink; however, after a while, he ate some of the birdseed and took a drink of the water,” Munoz said.

He said they didn’t know how long he had been at the back door of the restaurant frozen and without food.

“We mainly took care of him Sunday night and Monday, and then on Tuesday evening, our daughter, Tammy Buechner, wrote down the number 144 that was on his leg band. Through the Internet, she was able to find out he was a registered racing pigeon. Tammy entered the number on his band and it identified him with a racing club in West Jordan, Utah,” Munoz said.

Munoz said he called the phone number and the secretary of the club gave him the phone number to Mike Westenskow, the man who raised the pigeon.

Westenskow told Munoz that he had sold that particular pigeon to a man named John who lived in Wyoming.

Pigeon history

Westenskow gave Munoz some background information about No. 144 and racing pigeons. Munoz said that Westenskow told him that a lot of people don’t know about racing pigeons. He said they are bred to race, just like racing horses. The pigeons have three different races that they compete in — a 100-mile race, a 300-mile race and a 600-mile race.

One of the pigeons that came out of the same batch as No. 144 won the 600-mile race for the state of Utah in 2008. He started the race at the Canadian border and flew non-stop to his coop in South Jordan, Utah in 14 hours.

The Munoz family continued their search on the history of racing birds. They found out that this particular breed of pigeon originated in Belgium. The pigeons were used in World War II to carry messages across enemy lines. They discovered that ten World War II pigeons were decorated for their military service.

The most decorated World War II racing pigeon was called G.I. Joe. He saved the lives of more than 1,000 people by carrying a message to warn a village that the enemy was gong to bomb them.

G. I Joe flew over 50 missions through enemy lines and was never hit. He was presented a medal for gallantry after the war. When he died, he was mounted and is on display at the U. S. Army Communications Electronics Museum in Fort Monmouth, N.J..

History of Pigeon

No. 144

Munoz called John, the pigeon’s current owner, and found out that he works at the sheriff’s department in Lincoln County. He was out of town, so Munoz told him they would keep No. 144 until John came back and was able to retrieve his pigeon.

John told them that he bought No. 144’s family from Westenskow. The family consisted of the father, mother, No. 144 and another sibling. No. 144 is less than a year old. John told him that No. 144 was in a race with a group of pigeons when he went missing. The race started in Salt Lake City and was to end in Cokeville. They assume he was caught in the storm or that it became too windy for him to fly. Once he stopped, he might have become too cold or disoriented and was not able to continue in the race.

He has raced in preliminary races such as this one before and done quite well.

The owner of the pigeon said that pigeons are odd. Sometimes they will disappear for a year and then show up the next year to race. It is unknown what happens to them during the time they are missing. He said it is a mystery how No. 144 showed up in Evanston, and particularly at Mother Mae’s Kitchen.

Third bird to show up at Mother Mae’s

No. 144 is not the first bird to take refuge at Mother Mae’s.

“No. 144 is unique because I don’t know how he chose our restaurant. Some of the other doors might have been warmer than ours. What is even stranger is that this is the third bird to show up here. Last year when they were tarring the roofs, two baby birds showed up here. They were covered in oil and we tried to help them. We called people and they gave us solutions to get the oil off the birds, but we were unable to save them,” Munoz said.

Another strange thing about No. 144 is that he’s bonded with the Munoz’s Jack Russell Terrier. Two years ago, a man came into the restaurant and told the Munozes’ that he had a dog and if he couldn’t find someone to take him, he was going to take him to the dog pound.

“We couldn’t let that happen, so we took him. His name is Sonny,” Munoz said. “I have to wonder if they have bonded because they both had similar circumstances. They are so cute together. Sonny will lick No. 144. No. 144 doesn’t act afraid or try to get away. They act like they’ve grown up together or understand each other. It’s unusual. I put the bird in a spare bedroom in a little box with a clothes basket over him so he can have light. The dog lies outside the bedroom and keeps an eye on him.”

Munoz said he has received help from others in his life and he tries to pass that practice on whenever he can.

“I tell my family that it doesn’t matter if it’s a human or an animal; when someone needs help, I think we should take the time to do what we can to help them,” Munoz said.

Racing Pigeon News