“They do call them the poor man’s racehorse” laughs Ian Soult as he holds one of his 40-odd homing pigeons.
While growing up in Derbyshire in England, he was first exposed to the sport as a child by someone raising pigeons down the road.
He started his own flock of birds and enjoyed the hobby, but had to get rid of them when he immigrated to New Zealand in 1978.
But, he couldn’t stay away and by 1995 he was back in the fold and racing pigeons all across New Zealand.
“Our last race with young birds in Ashburton, they were home in about 4 and a half hours. They don’t hang around.
“They fly them from Kaikoura, Blenheim and Picton over to Napier, Hastings, Gisborne and the East Cape. They can do that from the East Cape in about 11-or-12 hours on a good day.”
Homing pigeons are trained to fly back to their home loft and carry an electronic tag that records the time on their return.
Trainers release their birds at a predetermined location and wait for them to come home, before taking the tracking data to the club where an average speed calculation is done in metres-per-minute to find the winner.
Ian says it’s amazing what the animals can do, being able to watch them fly out of the mountains and home when they come from the South from his deck.
Having moved up from Christchurch just a year ago, he says they quickly learnt how to make their way back to their new home as well.
“The old birds who were used to homing in Christchurch, there’s different methods to settle them in, it takes a couple of months.”
He says his birds are treated exactly the same as any other high-performance competitor.
“Pigeons are athletes. The more work you put in, the better you’re going to do.
“That’s the beauty of the sport, you’re totally involved. From the feeding, breeding and genetics. . . it covers the whole spectrum of subjects.”
“Eighty-to-ninety per cent of pigeon racing and being successful is in loft management and in trapping of the birds.”
He says they monitor their carbohydrate and protein intake levels, even carbo-loading birds before a race.
No one exactly knows how pigeons find their way home, with some theories suggesting it may be due to the Earth’s magnetic field.
“It’s remarkable. You take them to a race point they’ve never been to before. . . they circle around for five-to-ten minutes then head off in the direction of home.”
Ian does occasionally have birds not return home, with native falcons providing a constant threat to the flock.
He says his pigeons are able to outmanoeuvre and outpace a falcon, they can be taken by surprise, especially when they had just moved to the region.
“I had one bird that didn’t come back one day, and then came back a year to the day later.”
He says that can be one of the problems of raising pigeons, once they know where home is you can’t easily get rid of them.
Just like the sport, he always seems to come back as well.
His goal is to grow the Nelson club, make it more competitive and see the sport thrive.
“It’s a good hobby and a good sport. . . and for kids too. It certainly kept me out of trouble.
“You can have a stressful day at work and you go out to the birds and you forget all about it.”
Anyone who might be interested in getting involved can reach out to Ian on 0276923999.
