Purebred Pigeon SepOct 2024

45 – Purebred PIGEON When the 1973 National Pigeon Association Grand National Show was in Saint Paul, Minnesota that January, the MFRG held a portable loft fly on the top of nearby parking ramp. I still had my former family of Rollers and flew in it amd I took second place. The following year in 1974 Mark Ritter and I took a joint kit of Rollers in his portable loft kit in the trunk of my 1966 Chevy Impala down to Topeka, Kansas for the 1974 National Loft Fly. We took second place. It was hosted by Frank Picolet. Mark Ritter also had this same family of dual purpose Rollers from Bob Clark from 1976 to 1981. He put so much roll into his kits he couldn’t keep them in the air for even 15 minutes. So he switched to the high long flying Plona family. One of the awards the MFRG gave out was called a MFRG Diploma which was given to outstanding kit birds during flying competitions. My first year breeding this family in 1974 I only banded seven young birds. I also still had some of my old family that year. One of those seven won a diploma – my first of many. Bob Clark who I received my birds from only flew in one MFRG flying competition: the 1976 Yearling fly which he won. From 1987 to 2000 the MFRG held a yearly fly called the Single Bird Fly. Before time was called a bird was designated and was flown with others. It needed to be easily identified from the rest of the kit. It had a point system according to the different depths. My birds won it six of those 13 years. The first two years were by the same bird IPB 81-275 Blue Check Beard WF cock. Who, by the way, flew in my 1996 World Cup Finals kit CXas a 16 year old. The other four times were by four of his grandsons. One of his daughters, MFRG 88- 714 Blue Check Badge WF when paired to four different cocks, one being her sire, produced four MFRG Single Bird Fly win- ners. 714 flew in my 2000 twenty bird national finals kit as a twelve year old. I mentioned in another post about my Single Bird Fly sub daily. These birds have 275 and 714 behind them in their pedigrees many times over. HHL21-34 Blue Check Beard WF cock on the top left of my photos is out of a full brother/sister pairing that came from another full sister and full brother pairing from my Single Bird Fly sub family. The HHL 22-114 Blue Check Near Bald WF hen to his right is one of his two daughters who earned the right to move to the breeders’ section. Actually she has the best velocity of any of the 2022’s. (After banding with MFRG bands from 1981 to 2020, I could no longer get them in succession to the next hundreds. The following year I started buying personal- ized bands through the NBRC. HHL stands for Helping Hands Loft). The following photos are their offspring.• (Article from the National Birmingham Roller Club Face- book page courtesy of the author. He notes that, “The birds prefer to face the camera and their heads and necks appear larger than they really are.”)