Tentative Schedule (+/- 1 day or so depending on conditions).

Wed 19 - 100

Sat 22 - 120

Wed 26- 140

Sun 30 - 200

Mon 1 - Entry Fees due

Sat  6 - FInal

Moving right along after a hiccup on Friday with strong South winds that pushed the birds north and past the lofts. But they got some good wing time with just a handful missing. They have been flying well with short tosses and locked out for additional wing time. This week we will get to 65-70 miles, and we will pick the best day for the first Sprint at just under 100 miles, and in quick succession at ~ 120 (assuming no issues). These short ones are not meant to be survival tough ones. Lot of handlers like to beat the birds up to 100 miles and take the race out of them before the $ are on the line - there will be plenty of opportunity on the final for toughness. 

Entry fees are not due until just before the Final. Some perch fees are still not here - we will break some hearts ~!

Regards

Extremelhy pleased with the birds this week - with the majority flying really well and several non-clocking training tosses. We start the live clocking up at 35 miles. The birds are being locked out on the shorter tosses after arrival to open loft/fly. We will train every day this week short and stretch them out at the end of the week as a cool front will bring perfect temps to the valley yet again.

Will upload yesterday's inventory asap - we have to borrow the club's computer cable as ours had water damage from all the rains. Club race from 175 miles today - so cable is being used basketing/figuring.

Regards

Birds were outside every day except Saturdays (local races ongoing) and are being locked out for several hours daily, to let the hawks do the flagging. The majority have been flying really well with the cool mornings at 50 degrees and sometimes windy and rain on a couple of days - After the 25-35 mile toss, we will have online clocking enabled. We are almost there......

Regards

Last storms ended Wednesday wind/rain - birds are out on open loft Thursday/Friday. Brief pause for the local race from 358 miles Saturday - but back on open loft. A long overdue good spell of weather for the next 7 days with no rain/wind events.. We are 10 degrees below normal for the month. With this comes the hawks - they have been terrorising the birds the last weeks with some staying out and refusing to trap. This morning one entered the loft and we lost another 2 ~!! Looking at the positives, the birds are up in the air. We will be working them hard this upcoming week everyday despite the strong West winds.

Regards

We have not been able to come up with a schedule for the races and a regular routine for the birds with all the inclement, unsetttled weather, wild temperature swings that is plaguing our race course and locally here at the loft. We race out from the straight West towards California and it has been 15-25 tailwinds this month (and you have seen the weather there lately not just the winds). Fortunately, we have a line of sight - but it entails having some tougher races in April. With all the social media commentary on blow homes and fast races, we believe this will alleviate that issue as the hotter temps will toughen up the race course. The age of the youngest birds (September entries) should not be an issue to handle a tougher series. The temperatures have been cooler than normal and definitely the higher winds for March so far - so we will start getting a regular routine on the birds - and a tougher races series which will give you the feedback you need on your birds.

Regards

We start cranking on the current OLR birds Sunday.

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Message for the OLD BIRD FLYERS THAT left their birds for me to fly.

OLD BIRDS 2023 got started today with first race - unfortunately we missed the first race - banged up my knee and was not able to basket/train/or even feed my birds this week plus the weather was freezing with strong winds, early rain, and not conducive to training. Birds have been trained 15-25-45-68-68-68-68-68 in 9 days and should get them to 110 miles this week. We will be there for the 2nd race at the same distance as this week 180 miles or so...

All good so far - running about 2 weeks behind where we need to be but will start cranking late next week once the local flyers get their birds out. Windy weekend and we are out of town for the Superbowl chaos, Golf tournament, car show and what else is here in town this weekend.

THIS NOTICE IS FOR THE OLD BIRD FLYERS that left birds for me to fly OBs.

For the Old Birds that were left in 2021 banded for me to fly with the local AZ Federation - they have been loft flying for extended periods and trained 15-25-45-68-68-68-68-68 miles in the last  9 days - no babying ~~!. They have been settled in my personal flying loft AWAY from the OLR birds. We will have those local races up on Benzing separate from the OLR (some of the bands need to be switched to Benzing). The current OLR birds are Unikon. First OLD BIRD race is 2-18-2023. NOT every bird goes to every race - ship limit is 30 and so will rotate in the birds from 175 miles through 500 miles.

Best regards

The following 6 birds need new e-bands:

ARPU 15347

BAPT 50

GSC 67

CCIF 91

SHIT 2253

GSC 61.

We keep reusing e-bands year over year to keep our perch fees low. This year we have seen higher than normal missing of e-bands due to breakage or simply falling off. A lot of rain is here this week and currently heavy downpours so will be a few days before we dry out and run the birds out and in through the antennaes.

The weather has cleared a bit - after the rains/floods/mess at the lofts, it is now dry for a few days.

We are doing the painstaking handscan today and are almost complete. We should be done tomorrow - and have the corrections in. We had a few missing e-bands and a couple not working (again), and a few birds mixed up club/band number - so many entries with same number and different club this year (dutch to gene, aone to dutch, bon to foys, arpu to arc, ccif to tsr). Will fix these in the computer/Wincom and have them run through the traps on Thursday's upload.

Regards