Tuesday 20 September 2011

Another bad one!

The birds were trained tonight after a couple of days rest after the horror show from 28 miles 3 days ago where I ended up losing 8 birds. I took 39 this afternoon back to 28 miles and although the weather was not great they had to go. I have trained at this location for 2 seasons and never had a bad one from there until 3 days ago with one hit the wires upon release. I let the 39 birds go in the same spot with the only set of wires for a good distance about 50 foot to the right. The birds were let go facing directly away from the wires and they took off and turned immediately still flying to gain height. Once again they went directly into the wires with some going over and some below. 1 at the back went straight into them! They then did a full circle and did exactly the same thing again! This time the injured bird nose dived into the trees on the other side of the river. Unbelievable! They were clearly visible yet the birds flew into them twice in a matter of seconds! On arrival home once again there were no birds which I was not surprised about. I then had a group of 15 or so arrive and hit the loft. They were followed by another group of 10 or so. I then had birds coming back on their own until I had 31 from the 39 that were sent. Missing are 7 youngsters and my most experienced old bird that has had 15 races for me and has flown the channel! Between the hawks and wires I am being hammered every time I am taking the birds at the moment and I think I have made my mind up that will be it for this season. The race has been brought forward to Friday this week but I do not think I will be sending now. I have one who is all cut under his wing and he must have been the first one to hit the wires! Hopefully the missing 8 birds will return in the morning. The last two training tosses have hit me hard with 16 birds missing at present! That is a huge loss for me and I can't keep taking hits like this in training but if I don't train I am going to be hit even more with losses as the birds will enter the South Wales Valleys and that will be the end of them!

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