Whanganui pigeon racing enthusiast Owen Ryan keeps a flock of 50 birds in his back garden. Photo / Eva de Jong
Whanganui pigeon racing enthusiast Owen Ryan keeps a flock of 50 birds in his back garden. Photo / Eva de Jong
Over the summer, Chronicle reporters have been trying something new under the supervision of experts. Reporter Eva de Jong visited Wanganui Racing Pigeon Club member Owen Ryan’s home and the flock of 50 pigeons tucked away in his back garden.
For Owen Ryan, pigeon racing is more than just a retirement hobby – it’s an obsession.
During the pigeon racing season, Ryan sends pigeons to as far as Cape Rēinga and spends his weekends waiting nervously in the garden for them to return to their landing board.
It’s a sport that requires a lot of time and dedication, as owners rear their pigeons from chicks and then spend the racing seasons driving long distances across New Zealand to compete.
But how do you win a race? When they’re around 6 days old, each pigeon is fitted with a tiny ring with an embedded microchip that scans like a barcode inside their loft. It means the time it takes each bird to cover the distance of a race is calculated through an electronic system.
Pigeons have a strong homing instinct and learn to identify their roost from the air. Photo / Eva de Jong
There is just one winner: the fastest and first bird home out of all the teams.
I watch Ryan let his flock out of their coop and there is a flurry of grey wings then a sudden stillness, with each pigeon soaring into position in the air, the individuals in the flock forming neat compact lines like fighter planes.
I didn’t think it was possible for pigeons to appear agile or graceful, as most pigeons I’ve met have been hopping around a schoolyard scratching for sandwich crumbs.
Pigeons were once used everywhere in New Zealand for delivering messages, and large newspaper printers often had pigeons’ lofts built on their roofs to be the first to distribute the news. Great Barrier Island’s only form of mainland communication for many years was through the pigeon post.
More than 100,000 pigeons are said to have served in World War I, acting as valuable messengers across enemy front lines. Now, pigeons often carry diseases and are shooed away from public areas.
Ryan said pigeons had suffered a serious reputational hit over the past few decades.
“It’s the saddest thing that’s happened,” he said.
“In the 50s, when I was a boy, people used to say pigeons were wonderful and [praised] how good they were in the war, and that they were such strong little birds.
“Now they’re more known as rats with wings.”
When they are about a month old, Ryan begins placing his baby chicks on the landing board of the loft so that they can familiarise themselves with the platform.
“You breed off pigeons that have a breeding history of racing ability – you don’t want to breed off pigeons that are going to get lost.”
The pigeons are fed on a strong diet of peas, maize and barley, with plenty of carbohydrates ahead of the long-distance races.
He then starts training them by taking them by car over smaller distances, and slowly increasing the kilometres.
“Apart from the first time, normally they’ll beat me home.”
Although he had moved houses three times, Ryan said he’d never had any problems with pigeons getting lost and they easily found the new location: “They actually home to the loft itself, not their surroundings.”
Every sport has its thrill; that touchdown or penalty kick moment that makes the whole thing worthwhile. Any sports lover knows the feeling of clinging desperately to their seat in suspense at the peak of a match.
In pigeon racing, that thrill is waiting for the birds to land.
“Sometimes you can wait for hours; I usually work in the garden while I’m waiting for them,” Ryan said.
Ryan isn’t alone in these high-adrenaline moments. He also has an adopted stray cat, Tiddles, who has overcome his predatory instincts to become a security guard for the flock.
Adopted stray cat Tiddles watches over Ryan's pigeons and prevents other neighbourhood cats from bothering them. Photo / Eva de Jong
Tiddles spends his time chasing away neighbourhood cats and watching the pigeons fly in darting lines above his head.
Sometimes, pigeons can get lost during races.
“It can be very upsetting because you’re wondering where they are, but the funny thing is, generally speaking, when you do lose one, they’ll suddenly turn up around breeding season.”
Each pigeon club in New Zealand has a stray liaison officer who reunites any pigeons found by the public with their racing owners.
Ryan said the birds have a mixture of personalities and races are “a bit like a cycle race”, with some birds acting more naturally as leaders or followers.
“If you’ve got birds that are too tame, they’ll get back from a race and all they’ll want to do is parade up and down the pigeon loft cooing at you.”
