A complete mess this training toss turned out to be from start to finish! Firstly I planned to go to Cwmbran (25 miles) this afternoon, then decided to go to Newport (30 miles) instead as we approached the turn off for Cwmbran. We looked for a suitable place to liberate but before we knew it we were in the Newport City centre! We eventually pulled over by the docks just opposite the bus station! We unloaded the birds and were about to liberate them, when my senses kicked in and decided this was not the place to be letting them go. We loaded them back into the car and decided to head back towards Cwmbran. Again we looked for a place to stop and nothing suitable appeared. Before we knew it we were in a built up area again. We eventually found a Homebase car park and decided enough was enough and they would go from there! We liberated 31 pigeons at 4.30pm. We arrived back at the loft at 5.30pm and nothing! At 6.15pm 3 pigeons dived towards the loft and trapped ok. A minute later 1 more arrived. Throughout the next hour we had 20 back all coming in 1, 2 and 3's. By 9pm we had 26 back so down 5. A hawk attack if ever there was one!!!!! We also had another drop through the traps which was lost in the training toss about a week ago where we lost 11! He was looking like a picture and as if he had been on holiday to Barbados for the last week. I have put him in with the latebreds/injured birds loft and these will be trained up later in the year. There is 8 in there so far and another 9 will be weaned off now shortly so will have a nice little back up late bred team. I am planning another toss tomorrow from Shirenewton (35 miles) and will hopefully get there again on Thursday.
I am undecided yet as regarding sending to the race on Saturday. I will see how they come in the next two tosses and make a decision after training on Thursday.
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