Mistakes of a Novice Tippler Flyer: Part II

By: Jacob Sewall
Date: June, 2004
Category: General

Mistakes of a Novice Tippler Flyer Part II: Reasonable Expectations

The first topic I would like to discuss in terms of mistakes is the idea of
reasonable expectations. Im discussing this first because it is the first
opportunity that you will have to make a mistake with your Tipplers and
make them I did. It is imperative that before you start your pursuit of
Tipplers you have reasonable expectations for your birds, yourself, and
Tippler competition.

Let's start with the birds. The Tippler is, indeed, an amazing pigeon
capable of incredible feats of endurance flying. But that is precisely what
they are and endurance pigeon. They are not bred to fly high or fast; they
are bred to fly long. Long flight depends on the birds working well away
from the loft, raking, for some period of time. Tipplers will not fly at
pinpoint height straight above the loft for hours no matter what some people
tell you. Quality competition Tipplers will rake and spend some time unseen.

They will also, in my experience, fly at a comfortable height, but nothing
extreme. Likewise, they are bred for endurance; their speed of flight is
less than that of some other birds, like racing pigeons, bred for speed.
Just as you would not select an Arabian horse if you wanted to see maximum
speed over a Quarter mile, do not select Tipplers if you desire a speedy
pigeon. The relatively slow flight of the Tippler does not in any way
diminish the athleticism of these little birds. Elite marathon runners run
at a pace that is (while significantly faster than most of us could sustain
26.2 miles) substantially slower than that of elite competitors in the 400
or 800 meters, yet both are outstanding athletes. The mistake that I made
with Tipplers, regarding slow flight, was this: As a former flyer of both
racing pigeons and rollers, I hoped that Tipplers, due to their lack of
acrobatics, would be less susceptible to predation than rollers. That is
actually true and a reasonable expectation for two reasons, 1) as mentioned,
Tipplers perform no acrobatics which scream wounded bird to raptors and 2)
smaller Tippler kits of 3 5 pigeons attract less attention than a kit of 20
or more pigeons. The mistake I made was in thinking that Tipplers would be
as evasive as racing pigeons; this is not true. The Tippler carries less
muscle mass and more wing area than a racing pigeon (an ideal blend for
minimum energy expenditure ! aloft) and, therefore, just can't achieve the
same speeds. At slight

In addition to losses to raptors, Tipplers are a relatively high-strung
breed and you will lose some birds off the loft top when settling. However,
if your numbers approach those cited by some Tippler Fliers (over 50% of
your youngsters) you should look at your settling methods. Don't let losses
discourage you, or convince you that Tipplers aren't smart (they are very
bright birds), more than likely the problem is your settling method. I will
talk more about my settling mistakes later, for the time being just keep in
mind that you should not expect to retain 100% of the Tipplers that you
hatch through the settling process.

In addition to expectations of losses and flying style, you should also have
reasonable expectations of your Tipplers flying times. While many Tipplers
are capable of prolonged flight, some are not, and all Tipplers require
extensive mental conditioning to perform physical feats. You cannot
reasonably expect your birds, no matter what stock they are from, to fly
marathon times without substantial input from you the trainer. And this, of
course, is one of the main reasons to fly Tipplers, the training.

As training depends substantially on the Tippler Flyer and less on the
Tipplers themselves, let's move on to discussion of reasonable expectations
for yourself. You, as a Tippler fancier are primarily responsible for your
birds performance. You select the matings and, after a few generations, are
responsible for combining the raw materials of these avian athletes into
potential marathon flyers. You are also responsible for the training of
those potential marathon flyers. The greatest Tippler ever hatched will
still not fly marathon times on its own; marathon times require the physical
and mental (I cannot stress the aspect of mental conditioning enough)
conditioning that only the tippler flyer can provide. As you breed and train
your first kit of Tipplers and, probably, your one hundred and first kit of
Tipplers, you will make mistakes (see the title of these essays). Count on
it, accept it, and learn from them. Tipplers are pigeons, many aspects of
the Tippler game ! are the same as those in other pigeon sports, and many
aspects are completely and totally different. No matter what your prior
experience or level of expertise with some other breed of pigeon, you will
make mistakes with Tipplers. No matter how much you read, how many questions
you ask, you will make mistakes with Tipplers. I had flown other breeds with
some success, I asked many questions and read voraciously, and I still made
all the mistakes I am outlining here. If you can recognize and accept that
you will make mistakes and have failure kits along the way (as long as you
learn something, they are not really failures), you will be one giant step
forward in the Tippler game. There is a learning curve here, and you can be
told some things a thousand times, but until you do them wrong the once you
cant really understand why they need to be done the way you were advised to
do them. Make your mistakes, embrace them, and train the next kit better. I
made mistakes! , was discouraged, and dropped by the wayside, and that was
another mistake.

Even if you perform flawlessly, be aware of your limitations as a trainer.

Those may be from your skills (first time flyboys will not have the Tippler
sense of seasoned competitors) or your schedule. Tippler training for
Continental or World record times is an exhausting proposition requiring
almost as much time and commitment as entering a religious order.

Recognize the time and other resources you have available to raise and train
your Tipplers and plan accordingly. All else being equal, a flyer with a
young family working 60 or 70 hours a week will not be able to train his
birds as well as a retired flyer who spends his entire day training kits. As
Jack Prescott said many times it takes a fanatic to train a World Record
kit. If you are not a fanatic, or don't have the time to be a fanatic, don't
expect the results of a fanatic.

Expect to enjoy your Tipplers. If at any time the care and training of your
Tipplers becomes work, a chore, a second job, or you find yourself unable
to recall your children's names, reevaluate your training methods. If you
are working too hard at flying Tipplers, you will not enjoy flying Tipplers,
and you won't long be a Tippler flyer. Now, I am not saying that training
Tipplers will be easy, remember, this is a challenge, BUT, it should be an
enjoyable challenge, not an all consuming life and death struggle. At all
times never lose sight of the fact that this is a HOBBY.

This is what you do for fun and relaxation, your Tipplers may give you
moments of anxiety, but they should never be a source of stress. If your
Tipplers are causing you stress, you need to reevaluate your expectations.

In my case I spent too much time making my hobby too complicated, too
involved, and expecting to run an Olympic record before I could crawl around
the block. Which brings us to the topic of expectations for competition. The
expectations of what competition will deliver and how you and your birds
will perform hinge heavily on your expectations of your birds and yourself.
If you start with reasonable expectations in those two categories, your
expectations for competition will also be reasonable. Unfortunately, many of
us start with expectations for competition and then from those heap
unreasonable expectations on our birds and ourselves. So let us start by
analyzing
competition: Why compete?

To answer this question I will digress into another story. When I stopped
flying Tipplers (or pigeons at all), I started running competitively. Now, I
had run for years, but always in a rather bland fashion, the same distance
every time, approximately the same pace every time. I enjoyed running, but
it was conducted at a very low intensity level. When I started competing, I
started training. I have not run many races, and all are local affairs, but
simply having some sort of competition focused my training. Instead of the
same low intensity, identical distances every time, I increased my intensity
and changed my workouts. As a result of the increased focus and intensity I
enjoyed my running more, there was more variety, more purpose. Don't get me
wrong, running before was enjoyable, and simply watching pigeons fly is
enjoyable, but the training adds an additional element that is in some ways
even better. OK you say, why not just train then and compete on your own? !

Everyone has a watch; you can time your own run, or your own Tipplers. This
is true, but competition gives an additional edge. This fall I ran a race at
6000 feet elevation that I trained for at sea level. I expected to run
slower at elevation but ended up running faster than I had in training at
sea level, why? Competition. So, for those who are wired that way,
competition can add impetus and enjoyment to an already enjoyable pastime;
competing with Tipplers is no different. The important thing when embarking
on competition is to have reasonable expectations. When I started running, I
didnt read the training plans of the current World or Olympic record holders
and try to duplicate them, I read basic training plans and altered them to
my goals and fitness level. Yet, when I started flying Tipplers, I set out
to duplicated the methods of the competitors at the top of the game. In
short, I tried to run before I could crawl, let alone walk.

Part of the reason for this mistake is the nature of Tippler competition
itself. Tippler contests were originally carried out by flyers living in
close proximity to each other. Those flyers competed with each other, with
no real care for what other men were doing with Tipplers half a world away.

There was plenty of local competition and most need not look further than
the city or county in which they resided. But times change, Tippler fliers
disappear, and global communication becomes as easy as a keystroke on a
computer. Now local competition might be one, or even none other
competitors.

Competition seems to imply flying against other men and their pigeons, else
we would just time our birds in our own backyard and be done with it.

Consequently men looked farther afield for competitors. We are all now aware
of the World Record for Tipplers, the North American Record for Tipplers.

Given the few competitors, we might even be able to purchase stock from the
men who h! old those records. Because of this intimacy in the sport, it is
easy for a novice to believe that they are on the same level of those
competitors, even though that is far from the truth. In contrast, novice and
amateur competitors in the running game have no such delusions. The odds of
me running a race with an Olympian in it are slightly less than the odds
that I will win the lottery. And even if I did, the disconnect between that
competitor who trains almost as a job and myself is so great that I have no
delusions of being able to train like them recreationally or come close to
their competitive times. It is of utmost importance for the novice
competitor with Tipplers to recognize that even though the elite in the
hobby are competing on the same long day, as a novice you should not
consider that you are competing against those elite competitors.

In fact, the notion that you in your backyard are competing against someone
half a world away is something you should not entertain at all. Different
flying locations have different flying conditions, and flying conditions
play a big role in the time that Tipplers can or will fly. The winning time
in the Chicago Marathon is invariably faster than the winning time for the
Lake Tahoe Marathon. Why? Chicago is closer to sea level and is a flat, fast
course one of the faster marathon courses in the USA, the course that elite
competitors run if they want to set a record. In contrast, the Lake Tahoe
Marathon course seesaws between six and eight thousand feet in elevation and
has numerous hills, this results in slower times. The winners of both
marathons have achieved a great accomplishment, but the Chicago time will
almost always be faster. Likewise, in the Tippler game, someone in a
location with 15 hours of daylight on the longest day of the year is, for
the most part,! not going to fly as long as someone in a location with 18 or
20 hours of daylight on the long day. In running parlance, if you want to
beat the world record in Tipplers, you need to go to the right course move
North to a location with over 18 hours of daylight and you will be in with a
chance. Otherwise, set realistic goals for yourself the world record is
probably out of reach. There is the possibility that a truly great runner
could run the Lake Tahoe Marathon faster than the winning Chicago time and a
truly great Tippler trainer with phenomenally dark trained birds could fly a
Tippler World Record with only 15 hours of long day daylight, but the odds
of both are small and unless you find yourself at that incredibly elite
level (which as a novice you are, of course, not) it is best not to worry
about what flyers are achieving at distant locations. Worry about what is
happening in your own backyard. Tipplers are bred to fly long times, but
without proper training they probably won't remain aloft for more than about
4 hours. As a novice competitor, set a reasonable goal, work for 8 hours, if
the weather and your location permits it. If you are in a location where
winter is the fly season of choice, 8 hours may be dawn to dusk and this is
a very respectable fly for a novice. Five hours is respectable. Start small
and work up, every time your birds go up, fly, and respond to droppers on
cue, you have made a notable accomplishment relish every training flight. I
will never even compete in the 400 meters, but when I run a good 400-meter
workout faster than I ever have before, I feel that I have accomplished a
goal. Once again, you say Why compete if I am only concerned with my time,
and not really comparing to others? Maybe I cannot adequately explain this,
but for me, in my running and otherwise, even though I am aiming for a
personal goal, competing with others ! makes me work harder and achieve at
greater heights; but I won't be losing any sleep over the Olympic Marathon
record, I'll be shooting for new PRs (Personal Records) I just use the
other competitors as a tool to motivate me to push myself harder. In one
more parallel, even in the fiercely competitive racing homer game, no one
worries about who won a race in another part of the USA, let along another
country.

They compete at the club level (local flyers within driving distance) and
combine level (slightly broader envelope with a larger driving distance).
For many competitors, combine wins are next to impossible due to location.
So club competition is their main goal. As a novice in the Tippler game, it
would be wise to compete with those same expectations worry about the flyers
within 50 miles. The other thing to keep in mind from the racing homer game
is this: There are great birds, and there are great handlers. If one bird
wins a race, or many races, the bird becomes a champion, a winner. If a
handler wins many races with many different birds, the handler becomes a
champion. If you are satisfied with your personal records, branch out and
try for multiple PR times with the same kit, test your birds potential to
the fullest. Or, try for those same PR times with many different kits,
testing your skills to the fullest. But first, start small single digits
come before double digits and DARK is when people and birds sleep. Probably
the biggest mistake I made in training my first kits was in making it too
complicated because my competition goals were too lofty. Young kits can fly
very respectable times out of group kit boxes; this is less time and work
for you. Start out this way, then, when you feel you need an extra boost to
your game, try birds in individual boxes. On the longest summer days, most
locations in the US have at least 14 hours of daylight, that is an extremely
respectable fly. Once you have your birds doing this on a regular basis,
dawn to dusk, THEN worry about flying in the dark. Until then, drop your
birds at sunset, feed in the dusk and be happy.

Dark training and feeding is added work (you also must electrify your loft)
and until you are regularly flying your birds the whole day there is
absolutely no need for them to fly in the dark. But there I was, feeding my
birds at 10 pm, two hours after full dark. And they were only squeakers. I
was tired, I couldn't even work my birds in the light, but there I was in
the dark. MISTAKE. So, before you even get your Tipplers, set some
reasonable goals, have reasonable expectations, don't make the mistake of
aiming too high. It's like running at top speed as long as you can with no
training odds are you are going to pull something and end up in a lot of
pain.

Recognize the limits of your stock and your training skills (the latter
probably has greater limitations than the former) and start with small
competition goals. I started with excellent stock, more than capable of 10
hours. I had no Tippler training skills though I had successfully trained
other flying pigeons, and I started out at a dead sprint with my birds in
individual boxes, fed in the dark and I burnt out and make mistakes. If I
had flow them as a group and worked for a goal of 6 hours with that first
kit I would have been more likely to succeed and less likely to burn out and
become discouraged. When I started flying racing homers I had one bird left
at the end of my first old bird season! , and he took 3 days to get home
from 500 miles. But he came home and that was the first step of the game. If
my goal had been to win champion loft I might have become discouraged with
only one bird left. Reasonable goals and expectations kept me in the game
and if I had remembered that lesson, my first season with Tipplers would
have gone much differently.