Non-Competitive Flying, with Competitive Breeds

Jack Prescott
(Feathered World) Jun 2000

There are those among us that greatly admire pigeons that, on occasions, do fly at great altitudes. Even after long lifetime, it gives me a great pleasure to see a kit of pigeons up to pin-head size and even less. It gives me even greater pleasure to know that such pigeons, that are so free, so high and so unrestrained will, in their own sweet time, return to my loft and enter my loft. I can sit and relax while I watch these tiny little specks. so far above, so free. Even after so many years, I still feel anxiety when my pigeons get behind the patches of cloud or merge into the clouds or upper haze.

However, using my own system of management and my own choice of type, I have never had a problem with losses, since 1976. I hereby nominate the Competition Tumbler, sometimes known as the Competition Roller, the Wolverhampton Badge or the Wolverhampton Plain Head or Mag. With my own system, these pigeons will fly as high as any others. They will never fly the marathon times of Tipplers and they will never reach the standard of perfection found in the ideal Birmingham Rollers. Let us consider the ideal performance of a Birmingham Roller, shall we?

The specimen is clearly seen to suddenly catapult itself into a precise series of uninterrupted back somersaults at such a rate that the human eye cannot count the revolutions. I am not talking about optical illusions that give the impression of a perfect concentric. headover-tail spin, I am talking about a fairly low-level demonstration of such an acrobatic display that clearly indicates such perfection.

There are specimens that, at reasonable and practicable observational nearness, do show the abovementioned standard of precision, sometimes involving a prolonged spin and related deep fall, lasting for three to five seconds. At greater altitudes some specimens do give the impression of this perfection. Can I compare this supposed perfection to a priceless oil painting? At a distance, such a masterpiece looks perfect, faultless and precise, but if we come up close, we find the brush marks and lack of sharpness, plus some degree of daubing.

It is an official record that acrobatic flying pigeons have about 40 different expressions of action. When a large kit of these acrobatic pigeons suddenly cascades down in a simultaneous burst of action, at a combined altitude and range of 1,000 ft from the human eye, then the appearance is most spectacular and an illusion of perfection is on offer, whether such perfection is there, or if it is not. Now, with the Birmingham Rollers we have the definite standard of perfection, even though it can only be an optical illusion. With the Competition Tumbler, Competition Roller, Wolverhampton Badge or Plain Heads, etc we need not trouble about perfection of spin - in fact it is very seldom there. There is no pretence with these non-Birmingham Roller performances at all. The painful fact is that very few specimens of Birmingham Roller issue ever come close to the perfectionists' standards when observed from close altitude and range.

Proof? All right! Just buy several specimens from a top Birmingham Roller man -£10 each is the going rate - fly them for a year and see how few you have that come up to the standard of perfection. Me? Well, I'm one of those awkward people who accepts pigeons or people for what they are, notwithstanding what someone says what they should or should not be.