Arrivals with GPS Rings Quievrain 04/09/2023
The first race of the year, a week later than originally planned, but the weather decided otherwise.
Quievrain 111 km in a straight line. 40 Cocks and 41 hens were released.
This time, three GPS rings were attached. For 578-20, it was his first time with the ring.
I had programmed two rings to become active at 8:57 a.m. on Sunday and one at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday.
I wanted to know what a pigeon experiences on its way to the release site.
At 10:00 a.m., the pigeons were released, and then it was time to wait. Of course, we start a little later than the real short distance racers.
The first one arrived home and after a minute of flying around, clocked at 11:24. Within 25 minutes, 55/81 pigeons were home.
Two of the GPS pigeons arrived home at 11:43 (blue curve) and 11:49 (red curve).
They made a very strange curve.
The red one deviates much more towards the Waregem line and at the height of Ghent it seems to follow the E17.
The blue one goes a little too deep and instead of taking the line straight home, it comes all the way back to go around the Port of Antwerp.
Is there something in the port that they don’t like? The future will tell if they will ever go through it.
The third one was late… and late…
The loft was closed in the evening with three pigeons still missing, including the GPS pigeon.
On Monday, two more pigeons arrived, but not the GPS pigeon.
Too bad… in 2022, 4 out of 4 and 2x 1:10 on Agen-Narbonne, a pigeon you could really use and had a lot of kilometers on the clock.
It was also the pigeon with the ring that was set to know the route from the loft to the release point. So now we didn’t know that either.
On Tuesday morning, the pigeons were released and who was suddenly among the flyers… yes, GPS pigeon 3.
After charging the battery, we read it out.
The green frame shows the collection of the pigeons and their journey to the release site.
They were collected at 7:20 p.m. and arrived at the centralization point around 11:15 p.m., arriving well ahead of time in Quievrain (around 3:00 a.m.).
By then, the pigeon had covered 198 km by road from the local club to Quievrain.
Then release at 10:00… He follows almost the same line as the other pigeon that arrived home at 11:42.
Line to Ghent, then towards Zelzate and the Netherlands to Kloosterzande. There, at 11:20, he realizes he is too far away.
Distance Kloosterzande–> Hoevenen in a straight line 28km….. Instead of coming home, he loses his bearings and enters East and West Flanders.
At 11:58 a.m., he stops for the first time to drink at the Moervaart. He sits for 6 minutes and then leaves, flying for an hour towards Zedelgem.
There, at 1:13 p.m., he sits down for 4.5 hours and moves around a bit, perhaps to sit more comfortably.
On Sunday at 6:02 p.m., he sits down in Zedelgem for the night. On Monday at 7:33 a.m., he leaves again.
From Zedelgem –> Bruges –> Maldegem –> Eeklo –> St Martens Latem –> Deinze –> Waregem –> Wevelgem…… Totally the wrong way.
Finally, the GPS switches off at 12:11 p.m. on Monday in Celles.
On Tuesday morning around 8:30 a.m., he was able to reach his home base….
The question remains… Why didn’t he make that crossing in Kloosterzande to get home on Sunday at 11:20 a.m.?
In total, he flew 356 km before the ring failed…
Update Thursday, April 13 Yesterday, someone told me… could he have been startled by a bird of prey near Kloosterzande…. Well, it’s possible, but there was no evidence… or was there??… Today during morning training, I saw him land on the roof and noticed that part of his tail was missing. Silly of me not to have checked this when I got home last Tuesday. I think he is missing four or five tail feathers… Could this have something to do with it? No idea, but it’s possible…
