The birds were released in 2 groups today, one at 0845 the next at 0900. Loft helpers said that a falcon followed the first group home, grabbed a bird mid air and flew off to the west with it.
Most of the birds are in. We plan to train directly south tomorrow and get the birds ready to go over the mountains toward the Columbia River.
Rick & Olga
The birds were released from 0900-0955 in 7 groups today and crossed several ridgelines on their way home. Most of the birds made it in good time, those who did not got a valuable education today. We will return to the same location tomorrow, still trying to get their heads screwed back on straight after being locked down a few days due to dove season.
If all goes well tomorrow we plan on training directly south at least once from 25, 45 2-3 times, 60 2-3 times, 80 at least once which is across the Columbia River which averages 1 mile wide, then the activation race at 100 miles. If all goes as planned with training, weather and smoke, the activation race should be in less than 2 weeks.
We are working on a form which you will be able to print off of our site for those of you who will be mailing in payments after the activation race so you can indicate which birds you want to enter in the Silver and Gold categories, all are entered automatically in the Bronze. Those who want to pay via PayPal, our only electronic payment option, will be able to pay for your Bronze, Silver, and Gold entries through our PAYMENTS link.
Congrats to everyone who had birds return today and lets all pray and cross our fingers that tomorrow the birds come in even better than they did today.
We recalculated the speeds and it is current on Wincompanion.
The birds were released in 7 groups today from 0830 to 0910 in to a W to NW wind 10-15 mph. Most of the birds are in now, a Peregrine Falcon showed up a few minutes ago which put the late arrivals on alert but looks like it has moved toward the west.
We plan to train tomorrow if we get the rest of the birds in today.
Shooting for the activation race in about 2 weeks so please keep checking in daily on trainers so we can get fees collected ASAP and start the race series.
Raining this morning so no road training today.
Today the birds were released on top of Ahtanum Ridge about 1,200 feet overlooking the city of Mabton, WA. The air has cleared up overnight with constant winds out of the N and NW, today they had a 10-15 mph head wind all the way home.
Plan is to train up on top of the ridge a few more times getting the birds used to coming out of the mountains from the SE. Once we feel they have this down pat we will start to train directly south on the other side of the hills to the west where they should come on calm days, on W to NW wind days which we usually have they will be coming out of the SE. The purpose of training them on the E side before the W side is to help alleviate any big losses in training if the birds end up on the wrong side of the hills that run N and S from Goldendale to Toppenish, a 60 mile stretch. Basically, weare trying to get them used to the different ridgelines and valleys they will see on race day when we get even the slightest westerly winds which is the prevailing wind here.
It would be nice if we were on a flat course, would be much easier and quicker to get some real distance on these birds and get the activation race knocked out with few losses. Please understand that on this course the birds will cross the high desert, mountains, traverse several ridgelines and valleys, and hardest of all the Columbia River which averages 1 mile in width which proves to be our biggest adversary every year!
In other words breeders, the Apple Cup is no Cupcake course! If you have birds that can win here, well then you have some darn tough pigeons and you should be proud of them!
Please be patient on the Activation Race, hopefully we will be there in a few weeks.
We had planned on taking them out to our 35 mile station however the closer we got the more hazy it became. We turned around and released them at the base of the ridgeline in Toppenish which is 20 miles for them. We are supposed to get a N to NW wind the next few days which should blow most if not all of this smoke out that has drifted in from the fires to the east. We hope to get at least one more good toss in before we shut down for the first few days in September when dove hunting opens.
The birds were released between 0920-0950 in 6 groups.
Most of the fires here in the PNW are E and NE of us, a slight breeze continues to blow out of the E which has created a light haze over the area. Tonight the wind is supposed to shift to coming out of the W which is exactly what we need to clear up the haze out here. If tomorrow looks clear from the W wind overnight we may train in the morning but by Wednesday temps are supposed to drop and we should have clear skies by then, if we do we will start training again on Wednesday.
The birds were released today in 6 groups between 0820-0850. The birds were not clocking so when I got back to the loft I did some troubleshooting to figure out what was going on. A mouse had chewed through a cable running from the clock to the clocking pads, a quick replacement of the cable and all is good again. I sealed up all of the openings where something could get in there and chew on the cables so this should never happen again.
At the time of posting this over 2000 are already in the loft and it appears that most if not all are outside still trapping. Temps have finally dropped so the birds are enjoying some cool weather.
If you have been watching the news you know that we have had a lot of fires here in the Pacific NW and also north of us in Canada. Where we are situated right in the middle of the state of WA there are no signifigant fires to our west, they are however located to our north up in Canada, to our east in the eastern part of the state, and to our south down in OR and northern CA.
Today the wind blew out of the west so we now have clear air again, thank God! If it is still clear in the morning we plan to train due south to our regular 20 mile spot so we can get their heads screwed back on straight. Our last toss was on the 16th so we want to give them at least one toss from a spot their are well accustomed to, if they do well tomorrow we will increase distance later in the week.
Everyone have a nice evening.
Training will resume when smoke clears out of our area.
