The weather forecast at 1:30 this morning showed sunny skies for today. At 10:00 with the birds still sitting in the shipping crates, we had heavy and low grey clouds with some haze.
We kept the birds home and loft flew them. A large group is still up and flying at 12:12.
We plan to toss the birds from 55 miles tomorrow.
Our 55 mile training toss has been moved to Monday. The weather looks great for next week so hopefully we will get all our 55 mile tosses in and be ready for the 75 mile activation toss.
The 35 mile toss from yesterday is posted. The 3 birds that clocked in positions 212-214 were not late. They were missed by the clock and re-scanned later. Their numbers are JEDD 8567, AA 25467, and SOI 8545.
We plan to toss from 55 miles tomorrow. The 2 birds that returned today will be held back to rest and recover for the next 55 mile toss.
We loft flew the birds today in 2 groups. They demonstrated health and fitness. It makes me happy to see the birds in a tight cluster, high in the sky, and flying for the entire session.
Our "visitor" will continue to clock as long as he is here but will not be eligible for any prizes. His number is SOI 8545. It will be entertaining to watch his performance.
Bobby
(479) 719-3995
Our 35 mile toss went great. Almost all the birds returned in aproximately 48 minutes. We had about 12 late birds as best I can remember. We did clock the birds. Since 3 or 4 are still out we left the clock on in the loft. I will post this toss tomorrow (Friday).
On all the days we are unable to toss due to weather, we still try to flag the birds to keep them fit. They always exercise well.
Our next toss will be 55 miles. The birds look fantastic.
Good luck to all,
A complete inventory list is now posted. We have a bird, SOI 8545, that has been living here and training with the race birds. He has been here for a while. His owner is willing to see if he continues to stay and if he does reasonably well he would like to enter him in the race. I can't think of a reason why this would be a problem but if someone doesn't like the idea please speak up. The majority rules. It would probably be a first in one loft racing to have a bird relocate and win a prize.
The weather is constantly changing here. We will toss from 35 miles on the 1st good day.
The temperature plunged to 22 degrees this morning. We have been busy putting down wood floors over the expanded metal floors. We covered these with ground corn cob bedding. The birds will be much more comfortable. This will keep the cold and humidity off them.
We plan to toss the birds from 35 miles again on Tuesday. If this goes well we will begin tossing from our 55 mile station.
We plan to check each bird individually to make sure every bird is being clocked. We will post the results tomorrow evening.
We tossed the birds from 35 miles today. They did excellent. This is about as good a time as we will get from this spot. If the weather allows we will toss tomorrow from there again.
The last bird on the list is our little white grizzle that had a crop bruise. We rested her for 1 week and today we single tossed her from 10 miles. She flew home in about 15 minutes. We will release her with the other birds on the next toss.
I thought we had all the birds home when I removed the clocking system. I think we are 5 or 6 birds short. I am very sure most or all are here but got missed as they clocked. We had 120 birds clock in 60 seconds. Many more right behind. I will try to run all the birds over the antenna's tomorrow and let you know who was here with the first birds.
We think our mystery bird is a bird that lofted in and has been training with our birds. Due to our computer crash, which has been resolved, we were unable to check each individual bird this past weekend. We plan to do that this weekend. The mystery will be solved and there are some interesting possibilities that we may need to discuss.
Good luck,
We had extreme fog this morning. It took a while for it to lift. This was followed with strong winds. We will toss from 21 miles tomorrow.
CIRCLE 24 and VITA 1272 returned Tuesday morning from the Monday morning toss. VITA 1272 is in good shape. CIRCLE 24 has a bruised crop from flying into something. She is isolated where she can rest and eat for a few days or more. I will try to work her back in if possible.
The weather is really bad for a couple more days and then right back to our 21 mile station.
The birds were tossed in 1 group today. They had strong winds from the right. They took an hour to arrive but they came on the line of flight. I think they had to stay down low all the way to stay out of the wind as much as possible.
Almost all the birds came together. As they were going in a hawk showed up. That's why there is a break in the trapping times between birds 107 and 108.
GTO 1239, ARPU 41080, and GSV 2174 were among the very first birds to trap. The clock missed them. They were scanned when we ran all the birds back over the pads. The last two birds clocked were late today.
The weather looks bad for the next few days. We will loft fly if possible. We will toss the birds from 21 miles at least 1 more time before jumping to 35 miles.
