RACING PIGEON NEWS ISSUE 267

Welcome issue 267

High Flyer
The Northern Echo

Pigeon racing might not seem the natural choice of hobby for a young woman, but Katie Awdas is proving the sceptics wrong. She talks to Ian Noble.

THINK of pigeon racing and the image which springs to most people’s minds is a Northern chap pottering around a pigeon loft, wearing a flat cap and accompanied by a whippet.

Pigeon fancier Katie Awdas, 29, is not only ruffling a few feathers in the male-dominated sport, but is determined to prove her worth and pursue her lifelong hobby.

Katie of Church Lane, Bagby, near Thirsk, North Yorkshire, is one of the few women to be actively involved and is continuing a long family tradition looking after feathered racers in the region. As a member of the Topcliffe Flyers club, near Thirsk, Katie is one of two women (there are eight members in total), but she is as devoted as any of them and heads off most weekends to race her birds across the UK.

“I was brought up with pigeons as my granddad (Eddie Hudson), dad (Howard Hudson) and uncle (Trevor Hudson) all had them,” says Katie.

“My mum, Chris, is involved too, so I thought if you can’t beat them, join them.”

Katie was 15 when she started helping her dad. As she got older she started to help train them. The more involved she got, the more her interest grew. “At first, I didn’t so much want to race the birds as keep them as pets,” she says. “But I found it fascinating they could start a race in Scotland and end up back home in Thirsk, and it escalated from there.”

Being female and young, Katie has inevitably faced a fair share of hostility.

She came up against a lot of opposition when she started and some enthusiasts claimed she was only involved because of her father.

“There’s bad mouthing and bitching in the sport and people have had their pigeon lofts burnt down,” she says. “It’s funny because I do just as much as the boys at the club. I’m not scared about breaking a nail or anything like that.”

Katie’s passion for pigeons continued even after she left home to go to university in Huddersfield. It was there she met her husband, Chris Awdas. While they tried to spend as much time as they could together, Katie couldn’t stay away from her feathered friends and used to pop back at the weekends to check on their progress.

“I went home most weekends to see the 100 pigeons we loft at Knayton, near Thirsk,” she says. “Chris thought I was totally loopy.”

KATIE has been a member of the Topcliffe Flyers for ten years and races with her father, both under the Hudson family name and her married name of Awdas.

She has also won a number of trophies, including the Queen’s Cup.

Her bird was the first back to its loft in the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire area, after setting off from Lerwick, Scotland, recording an impressive speed of 52mph over 406miles. The feathered champ beat all 463 other pigeons in the race.

With the racing season running from April to September, most of her spare time is now spent getting the birds ready.

“I like going out to the lofts and getting away from it all for a couple of hours. It’s my relaxing time,”

Katie says. “My friends think I’m a bit strange, but it’s amazing seeing the birds come back from hundreds of miles away. I get a massive buzz from it.”

While pigeon racing has long been a male-dominated sport, one of the best known female fanciers is none other than the Queen, who keeps lofts at Sandringham and is patron of the sport’s governing body in the UK, The Royal Pigeon Racing Association (RPRA).

“We do have some women who race in a partnership with their husbands, but we don’t have many racing in their own names,” says an RPRA spokesman.

“We would like to see more females and youngsters involved as it is seen very much as a sport for the older generation. We’d also like to see memberships increase and to get more families involved in the sport too.”

Topcliffe Flyers are looking for male and female members of all ages. For further information, email Katie at katieh80@hotmail.com

Piero & Jan Obertelli of Ashfield.
By Keith Mott

Some people know him as Piero the Italian pigeon racer, others call him the ‘Italian Stallion’, but for the 30 years that I’ve known him he has always been Peter Obertelli! He was born in a small village north of Malan called, Piacenza, near Morfasso and the family house was built in the Italian mountains, and on a good clear day you could she the Swiss Alps. Peter is from a big family, with six brothers and five sisters, and tells me, only one of his brothers was also interested in pigeons and that was Renato, who was a very successful fancier in the London area a few years ago. When the family lived in the Italian mountains the older brothers chop down trees for logs for the house fires and to sell, plus they lived off the cattle, sheep and poultry they kept. The young Piero used to hunt for Fox and Badger in the mountains, which often got him into trouble with his parents, as he should have been working in the woods cutting trees. He kept a few Fantails when he was a lad and started racing pigeons when he came to the U.K. in 1976. He bought a house with a nice long garden in Hounslow, near Heathrow Airport, and very soon erected a pigeon loft. Peter recalls the premier fanciers locally in the 1970’s were Jack Knowle, George Burgess, Brian Goodwin and Eric Hurley. At that time pigeon racing was his passion, but still enjoyed hunting and quite often went shooting Pheasant and Hare.

I first met Peter Obertelli on one cold winters night in the 1970’s, when I judged an old hens show class for Isleworth S.R. Club and he had just finished the season of a lifetime. There were two classes that evening and Peter had entered four hens, lifting lst, 2nd, and Commended in the young hens class and 2nd in old hens. After the show we had a chat and he told me about the fantastic young bird season he had had flying in the Thames Valley Federation. Peter started up in the sport in the spring of 1976 with birds he purchased for 50p each from Petticoat Lane Market in London and after doing no good with these birds he decided to purchase some better stock. About that time Eric Hurley of Hanwell was packing up so Peter purchased four hens and a cock, all Stassarts, from him and these birds were the base of his 1970’s family. He also purchased Eric Hur1y's 16ft x 6ft one compartment loft and after added a 8ft x 6ft young bird loft. He kept 50 old birds and bred 28 young birds each year. Peter broke his novice status at Leicester the first young bird race in 1976 and also won the longest young bird race from Durham that same year. Peter's three most outstanding 1977 young birds were the red chequer cock, ‘Albion Lad’, winner of 1st Club, 1st Thames Valley Federation Pontefract, a blue pied cock named ‘Albion Galahad’, winner of 1st Two Rivers 2-B Club Nottingham and 2nd Club, 3rd Thames Valley Federation Leicester (beaten by loft­mate) and last, but by no means least, the dark chequer cock, ‘Albion Rocket’, winner of 1st Club, 2nd Thames Valley Federation Leicester. The early Obertelli racing team was formed mostly from the Stassart and Busschaert bloodlines and a good pigeon that Peter recilected from that time was the Busschaert cock, ‘Blue Boy’, and he was always the first bird home, but not always the first on the clock, having been caught to many times.

On moving up to the midlands in 1990, Peter and Jan packed up the pigeons, but aquired a field near their home in Sutton-in-Ashfield, and started keeping a few chickens, sheep and of cause Jan’s beloved Horse. Peter restarted with pigeons in 2004 and the lofts were erected on the field, which has proved to be an excellent enviriment for the birds. The field is complete with stables and has housed Jan’s very successful Show Jumper for many years. Jan is very interested in the pigeons and helps out any way she can, including stitching up and repairing broken legs on the damaged birds. She is very good with the pigeon having a vast experience of looking after live stock, after many years in Africa working with wild animals. In recent years most of her time has been taken up looking after and jumping her Horse at big shows, but unfortunely last year she lost him with a sudden terminal illness.

Peter’s several lofts at Sutton-in-Ashfield are set out in a square, with a slabbed area in the middle and he told me, the most important factor of his set up is all the structures are built at least 2ft off the ground. The lofts are well ventilated and deep litter has been used in previous seasons, but Peter wasn’t impressed with it, finding it very dusty. The birds are paired up at the beginning of February and the 24 pairs of old birds are raced on the roundabout system. The racers are trained from 20 miles three times a week and the cocks and hens are allowed to run together on marking day. The birds are left together for about an hour on their return home from the race and mid-week training continues right through to the end of the season. Peter repairs the old birds for the longest races and likes them sitting ten day old eggs for the major 500 mile events. They are fed on ‘All Rounder’ mixture, which is as the name surgests is a general mixture and this sees them though the racing season to 509 miles, with not much else added. Peter thinks the moult is a very important time of the year and gives his birds plenty of rest, backed up with a good heavy feed, with extra condition seed and linseed.

The Obertelli family of pigeons are mostly Janssen and Busschaerts, and eight pairs of stock birds are retained, which are paired up with the racers at the beginning of February. These are fed on ‘Breeders’ mixture and when bringing in new stock birds, Peter looks for an appled well ballanced body, intelegent eye and light in the hand, but above all it must come from premier winning bloodlines. When I asked if he was interested in the eye sign theory for his breeding, he said he liked to see a nice eye on a pigeon, but it made no difference when it came down to it producing winners in the stock loft. Peter never breeds late breds and says, years ago he used to take some off his best racers, but never did any good with them. The 50 young birds he breeds each season start training at 15 miles and when they reach the 30 mile stage they stay there, being given three tosses a week until the end of the racing season. For the first six weeks after weaning they are fed a heavy ‘Breed & Wean’ mixture and after this period they go on a lighter corn for racing. Peter did the darkness system for the first time in 2009 and he had a brilliant young bird season. The young birds are raced to the perch and are never sent further than 180 miles, as Peter believes they are still growing and sending them on to silly distances will only set them back. The Obertelli’s enjoyed a brilliant young bird season flying against the very best company in 2009 and won: 2nd, 3rd, 4th club, 12th, 14th Notts & Derby Borders Federation Stratford (2257 birds), 1st, 2nd, 3rd club, 15th Notts & Derby Borders Federation Windrush (2109 birds), 1st club, 6th Notts & Derby Borders Federation Newbury (2829 birds), 3rd club Salibury, 1st club, 7th Notts & Derby Borders Federation Portsmouth (2282 birds), 1st club Newbury, 4th club Messac. Peter’s two best performers in the 2009 season were the two blues, ‘Kirkby Boy’ and ‘Picola’, who lifted a list of top prizes.

Peter prefers sprint racing and although he wins his fair shair of old bird races, he like young bird racing best. He is a member of one of the strongest clubs in the Midlands, in the form of the Sutton Central Club and is flying against premier fanciers like Ron Vardy and Phil Elliot, but he says this is great to keep his approach sharp, and spurs him on to try harder to win. Peter loves to show his racing pigeons and has won many firsts through the years in club and open events, with big birdage. This is a testiment to the wonderful condition he keeps his pigeons in! He has judged at several premier shows, including twice at the RPRA Southern Region Show, when he traveled down from the Midlands with his good friend, Russell Lowbridge and stayed over for the weekend in Surrey. He thinks generally the sport has progressed in the last twenty years, but feels the hawk problem is pushing it back with people leaving the fancy because of their teams of pigeons get constantly smashed up by these preditors. The hawks are always in his field attacking his birds! He thinks the ETS system is a great leap forward for the sport, but fancier giving their birds too many treatments is a step backwards and thinks we should look after our workers better.

There you have it the Piero Obertelli story! I’ve enjoyed doing this week’s article, as Peter has been a good mate for a long time. I can be contacted with any pigeon comments on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.

The Wild Birds Return
By Sher A. Schwartz - Site News

Ketchikan, Alaska - It's a good day for flying in Southeast Alaska when the skies are clear and the wind is calm. Though this normally holds true for airplane pilots, it's not necessarily true for birds.

I raise and train homing pigeons, and the past four years I have been training my birds to come home from various locations around Ketchikan in Southeast Alaska. They've sped back to their north-Ketchikan loft from high peaks like Dude Mountain and from isolated communities, such as Loring, that can only be reached by boat.

Most of my birds are racing homing pigeons bred to return from hundreds of miles away. These athletes came to me through the United States Post Office from an established homing pigeon breeder in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. I crossed one of the racing homers with a wild bird named Growler, that I had successfully flown, to see how the offspring would compare to the birds bred for homing. Wild pigeons are known to have some homing abilities, but they are generally unable to return from distances much greater than twenty miles.

I had been wanting to fly the birds across Clarence Strait, a ten mile stretch of ocean west of Ketchikan, because in general training the birds fly over water everyday, and I had thought they would be able to quickly fly home--especially in fine weather.

The second Sunday in August was so calm and sunny it seemed the perfect opportunity to release the birds from the Prince of Wales Island side of Clarence Strait. My husband agreed to free the pigeons early that morning before he and his brother set their halibut hooks down at Twenty Fathom Bank. The seven birds were carried to the fishing spot aboard the Sea Wolf, my husband's twenty-six foot aluminum boat, in a Belgium wicker release basket. When Bruce held the basket over the deck, the quick release door dropped open and the birds burst out above the shining sea. They rose quickly and began circling over Clarence Strait to orient in the correct direction. Bruce called me later from his cell phone and said, "I'm sure the birds could see home from there."

And, indeed, they should have been home within the hour, but events did not unfold as planned.

It isn't known exactly how homing pigeons find their way home, but scientists have discovered the birds utilize a variety of methods--just like any good navigator. Genetics influence a bird's ability to navigate in particular conditions and the birds use sight, smell, the magnetic field, and the sun. In addition, an individual bird's personality can play a role in its homing success. US Military records from WWII tell of many brave service birds that returned home, after carrying important messages, "despite being wounded, shot at," and being released from their starting baskets in "near dark conditions."

Some birds are so independent and have such a fierce desire for home they ignore the flock and shoot off in the direction they deem correct leaving the flock, still circling, behind. And so it was on that clear day with Growler's offspring Ariadne --the crossbred bird.

Bruce recalled seeing one of the birds separate from the flock early on. He said, "the other birds flew toward Prince of Wales Island," which surprised him, because they were flying away from Ketchikan. But he figured, eventually, they'd come back around and head home like they always did. If they had flown directly northeast across Clarence Strait, they would have been home before noon.

Three hours later none of the birds had made it home. I scanned the skies and kept walking onto the beach to check the roof, and I repeatedly visited the loft. The pigeon lofts are below the house so I can easily watch my birds come and go. Mid-afternoon I saw, from the living room window, a pigeon come zooming in from Prince of Wales Island. It landed on the platform outside the loft and shot through the trap door. I ran outside, hurried down the stone steps to the beach, and entered the loft. Saucy, flighty, and only half-tame Ariadne stood perched near her mate on a shelf. Five hours had passed and the bird that made it home was a feral-cross --not a purebred homing pigeon! I was surprised.

By sunset Ariadne was the only bird to make it home, and I was online polling experienced bird trainers to get their opinion on what could have prevented the other six birds from flying ten miles across Clarence Strait on a calm, clear day. Charlie Cole from Marietta, Georgia, a racing pigeon enthusiast, suggested they "chickened out." He explained that racing pigeons "do not like to fly over a lot of water." He bet "only the bravest, most motivated" birds would make it back. Local fisherman surmised the birds had flown north toward Grindall Island, since it was the closest landmass, and had encountered an "iron wall"-- a magnetic disturbance in the area that threw them off course.

Everyone had a theory. In the end two crossbred birds and one racing homer were the birds to make it back. I was stunned that four of the purebred birds--the long distance warriors of the sky--did not make it home. Wynn Smith, founder of Ceremony Dove Release Service in Oregon City, Oregon and the developer of a new breed of pigeon called Release Duvs has spent years considering the genetics of a variety of pigeon breeds including the Columba Livia or the common pigeon. Smith posed a plausible reason for why the feral-cross birds could make it home.

The wild pigeons circling above Creek Street and Cape Fox Lodge downtown have been flying for generations over water. Thriving in an archipelago environment, they are born in nests built under pilings. The seawater rises and falls below them with the movement of the tide. In their daily life the Ketchikan birds fly over water to reach all their destinations whether it is to feed on seed or to gather nesting material. Smith suggests it is possible that when faced with Clarence Strait, Ariadne and her offspring tapped into a store of genetic memory enabling them to find the courage to return home; whereas, the racing birds didn't have that resource since their genetic memory did not include repeatedly flying over water.

Despite the racing pigeon's deserved reputation as being Olympian of the air, it was the wild cross, Ariadne, that flew straight over the labyrinth expanse of water and islands toward home. She combined the best of both bird types--a familiarity with water crossings and the homing skills and physical endurance of a purebred racing pigeon.

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