Glen Afton to Auckland Pigeon Race using GPS tracking

The race uses GPS tracking data to reproduce a race between racing pigeons. The birds do not fly together. Instead the time stamps of the data streams from the data is reset when the birds cross a latitude 1/2 km North of the release point. The result is a unique race that tests each birds individual homing ability and speed to an arc drawn 1/2 a kilometer from the front markers loft.
Racers
Theo Van Lier - "Mr.Energy"
Roger Smith - "Flap"
Richard Couchman - "The Man"
Fred Bachinela - "Yakuza"
Carlo Yson - - "Michaela"
Jerald Avendano - - "Inday"
Louie Morales - " Aerosmith"
Carl Coker - - "Black Pink"

[@louiemorales9582]

Hello Carl!! Great job 👌

[@mwagomathia553]

i love pegions and what an amazing race

[@carloyson9230]

Thank you sir carl

[@hannesdutoit1928]

Are you going to do long distance races in the future? .

[@danielherman1966]

Imagine if you had hundreds of tracking bands! I would love to see the race with more bands. How many separate bands could be run during a race? Is there a limit? I really enjoy your commentary and seeing how the orientation of the pigeons becomes a considerable factor in the race.

[@bluebar.2030]

100+ would be magnificent. With the single ups there needs to be 10 - 15 minutes between releases to ensure they don't hang around waiting for their mate's to go and rely on another bird for navigation. This release rate of around 4/hour would be the limiting factor to what you have suggested - which is a shame as the software I've written for this presentation wouldn't have any problems with many more competing birds. Humans would have the ability to navigate as pigeons do but can only see the aurora effect they see at very high latitudes in the evening (auroras australis and borealis) but we sense longitudinal displacement whenever we are jet-lagged. Studies done by Cornell suggest the 'clock speed' of a pigeons brain is much faster than ours to the point that a 30 frames per second movie at the cinema would be like a slow slideshow. This suggest the degree of 'jet-lag' a bird feels is felt much more acutely by a bird. This then translate into the ability of the bird to orientate East - West. I'm glad you enjoyed the commentary. I'm sorry about the crackle I'll try and fix that before Mondays Race.

[@danielherman1966]

@@bluebar.2030 And, with the invention of the tracking bands on the pigeons, we can get an accurate representation of the fast orienting birds. So many pigeon fanciers have culled their flock by "the basket" method in order to pick their breeders. I think this would make an improvement in their selection process. Maybe a bird that wins the race is kept in a loft as a breeder because the other loft mates had some other problem that kept them from winning, even though they were better. Have you heard of a way to select breeders by their ability to navigate most accurately other than this? Probably not. This is a fantastic tool. Is this the same as the SkyLeader bands or some other company? Thanks. Dan from Norco, California, USA.

[@bluebar.2030]

@@danielherman1966 I absolutely agree. This provides a new, effective tool to help selection but as with most things I don't think it should be the only metric used to measure a birds performance though. We need to remember our birds have an amazing capacity for remembering a previous route and that will always be their 'go to' choice for navigation. By way of example take a close look at Aerosmiths track and you can see she does a 360 every 20 minutes or so compared to Flap who'd clearly flown the route before and simply flew home via known ground features, Route training and conditioning to me are the key. The magic they are capable of in terms of navigation is brought to the fore with route training and happens naturally so long as the bird is healthy. If we keep our birds healthy and train them often they'll do great things. To your question I use SkyLeader rings. I've approached Skyleader about them using my software but they've not bothered to reply despite the commercial opportunities. Shame. It could have been quite lucrative for SkyLeader with many pigeon fliers buying their rings.

[@1943klt]

@@bluebar.2030 How are you extracting the data from the Skyleader ring before the default upload to Skyleader? Also is the ring data file in NMEA, if not what is it. The Skyleader customer care is appalling, as I have sent them 4 messages and never received a reply. I also have a friend in Taiwan who spoke with them on the phone and afterwards sent them a copy of my email and once again no reply back.