Ok it was my first toss I ever took my birds on and it was me and my sister. My sister like usual had her favorite and had to hold it before we tossed them, and I had my pick. I was a great day for flying so I want to get out as soon as posible, we headed up the road to the 1 mile mark and stopped the car and get out then let the birds go, my heart was racing! It just seemed so far and it felt like I just some how killed my birds?!? We didn't sit and watch them fo long becasue we wanted to make sure we got home before them, and we did it took them a half an hour to make it home from that toss and ws I glad to see them! lol and like I said before my sisters came hoemr first! but it never traps first and most of the time when it comes home it justs sits on the roof of the loft and preens it's self for a couple minutes before trapping. So that was my first toss, the second one went much better as far as time goes, the birds made it home in like 10 minutes which in pretty dam good compared to the 30 minutes to took them the first time, it was only me tossing them this time and after I let them we started driving down the road, I could see them over head but then we went around a coner and couldn't see them anymore.
The Story Of My Wild Birds
I got my first pigeon about 6 years ago,it was a wild bird that my dad got from a old carwash were I always watched them, I knew them 40 birds at the car wash like the back of my hand I knew when and were they ate, and when I could see them preening at the carwash, I had that bird for about 2-3 years in a big cage on the side on the shed in the backyard before I got an other one, I got the other one for Easter and luckly it was a cock, I knew that the first one was a hen because it layed to eggs a few days after I got it. Anyway after about a month of pairing up! the hen which I named Heneryaita, layed the first round, but the rain got at it, so they had to start over, but this time they raised 2 little ones, I loved these birds! When they were about 3 weeks old there mom got out of the cage and flew around with some other wild birds for a while but did end up coming back that day, but when she was out I took the littles ones up the road were she was hanging out. Those babys ended up dieing because they had a mite problem. This is the wierd part of the story, I went out one morning to feed them and noticed that the hen was gone? I never did find what happned to her but ws pretty sure something got her. That left the male which I named Fred he also go out one day but cents I only had one I just let him do what he wanted, I took out a window on the shed and he would hang out with his friends during the day and come back to eat and to rest and then every night he would some back and roost in the shed, until one day he just stopped coimg back and I would only see him flying over head every other day, this went one for a couple years. But the good thing is that he did, but he did end up making it and this past summer he came right in my loft becasue he was looking for a mate, I did end up catching him and built a cage for him on the loft but he got out, after that he got a mate and I think he had one little one with her, I no this becasue he always came back to feed at the birdfeeders with a other bird and a young bird that looked just like him. Cents then I haven't seen him, but I think it is becuase it is winter and he is most likely with a the big flock at a pig farm down the road, but I haven't givin up on him yet, I wouln't be surprised to look out at the loft this spring and see him sitting there...UPDATE!!! Fred is back! lol well most of him... I have been seeing him a lot lately but he only has one leg!!! But luckely it doesn't seem to be slowing him down!!!:-)Wierd Luck?!
Last year(2004) I had a very bad toss. I like almost half my YB team. But that's only the beginning. I got a call about a week or so later from a good friend in New Brunswick who lives just out side Moncton. He ask me what my band series was for this year and so I told him. He said he got a call from a buddy of his down the road and he tol him he had a pigeon with a band on it's leg in him barn. So Mike went down and cought the bird and brought it home with him. He had known that I had a bad toss and called to ask if the band # of the bird fit my records. Which it did!?!?! Some how the bird flew all the way to Moncton N.B by it's self?! The Mmoncton race station from my loft is over 150km's! So I look at my records and saw that the bird as off one of my better pairs of breeders and told Mike he could keep it if he would like. So he did and he nursed it back to full health and this year(2005) he will be breeding off it! What really amazed me was that of all the places and houses it could have went to it went to a barn that was only down the road from a good pigeon friend of mine?!
