Some people bet on horses, greyhounds and even dead mullets - think Flora-Bama's annual competition.
Eric Schultz, The Huntsville Times -- A pigeon flies to a roost in a pigeon house of Charles "Ray" Cortez during a meeting of the North Alabama Pigeon Racing Club in Meridianville, Ala., Saturday, March 12, 2011.
Then there's Charles "Ray" Cortez, a 62-year-old Pennsylvania native who found his No. 1 hobby at age 9. But there's no money on the line for Cortez. He just loves racing pigeons.
That's right. Pigeons.
Those pudgy, gray birds, commonly seen perched under an overpass or scavenging for tidbits of food at a park and that you might dub a nuisance, are actually more intelligent than you think.
Cortez and 10 other members of the North Alabama Pigeon Racing Club race and raise homing pigeons, the domesticated version that's a little more than 4 ounces heavier than those in the wild. Unlike wild pigeons, racing pigeons live up to 15 years and have a pretty hefty price tag ranging from $500 to $3,000 and even $200,000 - as one Chinese devotee in Belgium recently bid, Time magazine reported.
For Cortez, it all starts just outside his Meridianville home in his pigeon loft, the home to young birds, old birds - pigeons more than a year old - and retired racing champions whose sole purpose now is to breed to produce a champion with a prized pedigree. Training can last six to eight weeks and entails loft flying, which literally means flying around the loft to become better acquainted with the area, and tripping. No, it's not pigeons on psychedelics.
"Tripping is when they take off and you won't see them for three to four hours," Cortez said. "After they start tripping, you take them out five miles, then 10 miles and 20 miles.
"Then it's time for their first 100-mile race," he said.
On April 15, for example, one of the club members will drive a custom-made trailer full of pigeons to Slayden, Miss., for the 100-mile race that equates to 150 air miles for the birds. With all of the owners back at their abodes, it should take the pigeons about three hours to return to the loft, flying about 45 mph.
Each pigeon is equipped with a numbered ankle band that's embedded with a chip. With each band registered in the owner's Benzing electronic timer, all it takes for the racing pigeon to clock its time is to step on a scanner - similar to a grocery scanner - outside the loft.
It's a lot more complicated than you think.
And when it comes to pigeon racing, it's not about prizes or the notoriety, said Nick Redfern of Huntsville.
"It's an investment," he said. "We order their medication, vaccinate them and breed them for speed, balance, intelligence and buoyancy.
"Like all things you get attached to, it's sad if anything happens to them," Redfern said.
Cortez once raced 50 pigeons in one event and lost all but two; they returned to the loft two weeks later.
"They can become disoriented, be mistaken for doves by hunters, attacked by larger birds like hawks or just lose their way home," Redfern said.
But, like both Redfern and Cortez say, you can own up to 100. When it comes to the race, "It only takes one."
North Alabama Pigeon Racing Club 3/12/2011
MERIDIANVILLE, Alabama - Ten members of the North Alabama Pigeon Racing Club met Saturday to discuss their upcoming pigeon race and to train some young birds in Meridianville.
For more information about the regional group, visit narcpigeons.com/custom.
Source: AL
