Pigeons eager to get next flight home
On most Saturday mornings in the summer, Tom Makowecki can be found standing on his front porch, craning his neck upwards while his eyes scan the sky.
Sometimes, he said, he is outside for hours before finally spotting what he is looking for — one of his treasured pigeons making its way back home.
Makowecki is one of dozens of avid pigeon racers in the Edmonton area.
Almost every summer weekend, Makowecki and the other members of the Capital City Racing Pigeon Association release highly trained homing pigeons hundreds of kilometres from Edmonton.
Association members don’t do it for prizes. They don’t bet money. Makowecki said it’s a hobby, and participants race pigeons for fun.
“And, well, we do it for the glory.”
Makowecki first learned about racing pigeons when he was six years old and befriended a neighbour obsessed with the hobby. He has been raising and racing pigeons ever since.
“It takes me back to my childhood,” he said.
Although he can’t watch the birds race an entire course, Makowecki said the excitement of witnessing the pigeons’ arrival makes it enjoyable, week after week.
And the birds’ arrival can come surprisingly quickly.
In the club’s first race of this year, a 180-kilometre trek from Irma to Edmonton, the winning pigeon clocked in at an average speed of 96 km/h.
Makowecki said on days with the advantage of a tail wind, the birds can fly an impressive 120 km/h.
Pigeon racing is believed to have originated in Belgium in the early 1900s. Today, there are pigeon racing clubs around the world, including two in Edmonton.
Dave Stead is the secretary chair of the Northlands Invitational Homing Club, formed in 2005.
Stead singled out a few of the racers in the two clubs, praising them as the “Edmonton godfathers” of pigeon racing.
What distinguishes the good flyers from the great, is the breed of pigeon, he said.
“The best flyers have smart birds that come from a good bloodline. It’s just like racehorses. The better the bloodline, the better the pigeon.”
Makowecki bought a pair of pigeons from Belgium in 1971. It cost him a month’s wages to purchase them, but the birds were worth every penny.
“They were really successful breeders,” he said.
No matter how good the bloodlines, there are some races where the best birds don’t make it home. Birds of prey are a problem in the world of pigeon racing, in addition to storms, hanging wires and wire fences. But for the most part, the pigeons make it home.
It can take years before young birds are ready to tackle long distances, but once they do, they can find their way home from more than 1,000 km away.
Training racing pigeons — which involves familiarizing the birds with the surrounding areas, short distances at a time — is time-consuming.
Makowecki said, since he joined the Capital City Racing Pigeon Association in 1963, club membership has steadily declined. Pigeon racing has a dedicated following around the globe. Each year, the world’s fastest pigeons enter the South African Million Dollar Pigeon Race. The winner takes home $125,000.
Leo Heremans, a Belgian breeder, recently made headlines when he auctioned several of his birds. One star pigeon, Bolt — named after Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt — was purchased for a worldrecord $400,000 by a Chinese businessman.
Makowecki said although he doesn’t plan on investing hundreds of thousands into pigeon racing, it’s a hobby he won’t be giving up.
“It’s been such an enjoyable part of my life almost six decades now. I’m sure I’ll be racing my birds for years to come.”