Pigeon Paradise: world's largest meeting place for pigeon fanciers

Weather conditions during liberation: high clouds, light wind, sunny, very nice, east wind, very good visibility

The United Kingdom’s most progressive racing pigeon organisation held its first race of the season from Carentan which is situated on France’s Cherbourg peninsula and is a flight of between 200-300 miles (300- 430 kms) to the majority of the club’s members.

It was pretty much a perfect race for Turbo, covering 486km at a speed of 1287.35 m/min. It was yet another (inter)provincial win for a loft that has been collecting several important national wins in recent years.

Take a look at the results of the interprovincial Vierzon and you know who will be the men to watch in Bourges this upcoming weekend: Jos and Lars Vercammen from Vierzon have been truly outstanding in the past few weeks!

Last weekend, the pigeon weather was better. Once again, many top performances were put in.

The past weekend brought us long awaited beautiful pigeon weather, ideally suited for the first interprovincial races of this season. Last weekend there were a lot of top performances.

The first race for the National Flying Club in the UK was held from Fougeres on Saturday 19th May. The birds were liberated at 07.30 hrs with a light south westerly wind and sunshine at the liberation site. Conditions along the route varied from a south westerly in southern UK to a north easterly further up the country. Towards the north of the UK the visibility and weather was expected to deteriorate.

The Royal Pigeon Racing Association (RPRA) has given more information on the liberation site Bovingdon for the FCI Olympic Race from London.

Many fanciers are still struggling to get their pigeons in shape, but grandmaster Adrie Kors from Steenwijkerwold is already in a winning mood with two victories in the space of two weeks with the fastest pigeon of province 11 Friesland.

The 2012 racing season is well underway with the races for youngsters which started this weekend. And on May 26th, we have the national Bourges, traditional opener of the ‘national racing calendar’ in Belgium. So it is time to close down the sales market and to concentrate on the competitions!

Today the last 2 auctions of the season are ending, below a short intro on both auctions

The way the super colony of Jelger Klinkenberg has dominated the North-Holland sprint and middle distance races in 2012 is nothing less than sensational. Top-class hen and Europe Cup racer ‘Miss Magic’ is on a winning spree with 4 top 10 prizes in the district; her niece ‘Miss Perfect’ is becoming a new Klinkenberg sensation with two fantastic victories in seven days!

A spectacular double strike, that is what the ambitious Ton Klomp achieved on 12 May. After achieving 1st and 2nd Open against 9,715 pigeons in the sprint race from Grimbergen - he continued his momentum with a 1st, 7th and 9th NPO North at the NPO race from Breuil le Vert against 5,424 pigeons. His hard work has paid off!

‘I love it when a plan comes together’: that was the slogan of the military mastermind from the A Team John 'Hannibal' Smith... The popular television character was sometimes a bit eccentric, but he was above all an excellent strategist: what a striking resemblance to ‘pigeon guru’ Gert-Jan Beute. The performances he expects of his pigeons and his ideas on breeding have resulted in the best one-day middle distance pigeon of The Netherlands ‘Best of the best’ 2011.

After the many positive replies to last year’s double interview between the brothers Vandenheede and Verreckt-Ariën the same thing was done over again with 2 other icons of the international pigeon sport, namely Etienne Meirlaen & Erik Limbourg.