Training Reports

****It is time to activate those backup birds if you have them. Please give us a call or if you know you have backups and they were not needed to replace your regular entries please send in your race fees for those. Any questions just give us a call.****We will also make an effort to contact you as well. All backups must be activated by Oct 10th . We may fly our first race the 10th. The birds are ready.

The birds have been loft flown every day and today with the winds blowing 25 mph gusting to 30 plus they gave us an 1 1/2 hours in the air. This was a great conditioning fly and much safer than having them break legs on the road. The rain is coming for Monday and maybe carry into Tuesday. We hope to toss the birds mid week for perhaps the last time. The race is a week from tomorrow but calling for rain then as well so we may have to go mid week for the 1st 150 mile race. Long range forecast do not mean much and can certainly change but we will do what is best for the birds. If it is a head wind less than 20 mph we go. If it is a tail wind we go. If it is rain we do not. We will keep you posted. All the birds on the wounded and tired list are back in action and flew today and flew well. Only one bird may not go to the race because of a leg injury. The bird that has been on the reports as unknown has been identified. It is 08 BLG 53. Have a good day and get ready to rumble!!!!!

We tossed the birds at 75 miles again today. BLUE SKY DAY, light and Variable breeze E-N.E with all birds being released at 7:45 am. No help for the birds with wind. Toss was a big success! Birds came great as you will see from the report. After our last toss we ended up getting 231 birds home. We pulled 3 birds off the rest list and sent them today. We left 8 at home that we felt needed a little more time to regenerate or heal up from minor injury's. The birds we pulled off the list and put back into training were EVERETT 1463-ESPO 35- QUEST 2403. We had another bird come in late yesterday that was left at the loft today and it was an OKM bird. It was not injured but had flown down some. There is a big difference in a pigeon that comes late but still fresh and one that you can tell has flown off coarse and flown hard to get back. Those are the ones we leave at home until we get them back up to par. Anyway, we feel the birds are more than ready but we have to keep them sharp and healthy so it's not over yet. We know all eyes are on us as we progress and we certainly wish all other handlers out there the very best. We all have one thing in common, GREY HAIR! Best of luck to all of you. Results are posted below.

Update for 9-30-08 The toss today was super!!! 76.6 miles and we had nearly 200 birds within 5 minutes. They flew right at 60 mph and did not circle at release. They came in darting and diving in two large groups just less than a few minutes apart. All the birds were released together at 7:55 am. Clocked birds around 9:11 am. We will post the results after lunch because we want the clock to get the 8 birds that over flew or whatever. As we said before we left 8 birds home because of condition or slight injuries. We will run them across the scan pad so you can see which birds we did not train today. We also got two birds in late last night to bring us back up to 232 birds before today's toss. I started to go 100 miles today but did not take my own advice. They would have done just fine.

We will toss 80 miles in the morning and all birds will go up together. 8 birds will stay in the loft. 2 were slightly injured and 6 that were late and need to sit this one out. We will list them at the bottom of the report tomorrow. They will be fine and should be able to go to the next toss. The birds may over fly us tomorrow since this is their first tail wind although they will not get much help. Winds should only be 10 mph.

Hey everyone. First let me say that the toss went well. We wanted to put a little heat on the birds so we put them up a little later this time with Clear (Blue Sky Day), Humid and hazy. Again the birds circled more than normal. Today they all went up together in one big group for the first time. We know that nearly every bird we have can fly 2 plus hours around the loft so we wanted to break them up knowing if they did make a mistake in the heat they can stay in the air and work it out. They did. They came in small groups, large groups, singles ,doubles, and triples but they came and had good air time. When it cools these birds should blast home! We have over 220 home as I am typing this, and others are coming single. We will get them back or at least most of them. Have a great Sunday.

Birds will go 75 or 80 miles in the morning. They will have a light tailwind this time and cooler temps. The only birds that will not go to this toss are the few second day ones that we feel need to recover more. We will get them on the next toss.

Birds tossed today from 60 miles . Birds circled more than normal but they have done that often and seem to line out and go. We think the haze and low patchy fog we have had every morning has a lot to do with that. It was a good toss with the groups coming great but still out a few that seem to have taken the long way home. We will post results later today. We have over 200 birds in the loft and more coming so we are not concerned for those few yet. We just want to make sure we get everything on the clock and do our band check. Current conditions are listed below along with today's report. There was 4 more birds come in while I was working on this report. We will loft fly and and post their numbers in the morning. Temps are now close to 90 so the few later birds have gone down. We look for them later this afternoon.

231 birds here. Check at the bottom of the report for the birds that did not clock but arrived with the bunch and the one that arrived early today.

Below are the birds that the clock did not pick up and one bird that arrived today.

227- Galaxy 835

228- CBS 463

229- PRO 730

230- ALCA 396

231- ARMY 818 Arrived today early

Current conditions as of 8:53 am CDT

Fair

Feels Like:: 71°
Barometer:: 30.28 in and rising
Humidity:: 75%
Visibility:: 10 mi
Dewpoint:: 61°
Wind:: S 6 mph
Sunrise:: 7:20 am
Sunset:: 7:21 pm

400 mile Worldcup Date not solid yet( aprox10-14 days after final Truck race 300) You will need to nominate and pay for all entries for the 400 during that 10- 14 day period.