By Amanda Julius

On the hottest day of the year in this neighborhood of sun-bleached, flat-roofed houses and pastel beachfront food stands hawking seafood and pina coladas, 97 pigeons are sheltering in a shaded coop on Neptune Avenue, a stone’s throw from the Stillwell Avenue subway. Mechanics are sitting out on the sidewalks, shouting casually across the road to one another. On the rooftop of the radiator repair store where he works, Anthony Martire has one eye on what’s happening down on the street, and one eye on his pigeons.

Martire is one of Brooklyn’s homing pigeon experts, having won numerous races and raised and flown one bird that entered the National Pigeon Association’s Hall of Fame, which he talks about with reverently glassed-over eyes. Along with fellow pigeon enthusiast and Bedford-Stuyvesant native Antonio Velazquez, Martire is preparing his birds for the September racing season, when they will race other pigeons over distances of 100 miles. The two men keep their shared pigeon outfit in an outdoor chicken-wire coop, which opens up into an indoor allotment made of whitewashed wood, where each bird has a particular nesting spot. Directly above it is a sizeable, egg-yolk yellow plaque advertising home demolition. Matire spends much of his time scraping pigeon excrement off the coop’s floors. “See how clean it is,” he said proudly. “It’s a job. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”

The Radiator Loft has sat on the same Coney Island roof since 1947, when Martire’s father, Lawrence, first began to keep pigeons. “I got a lady next door who complains about the feathers,” Martire said, “but I says, ‘Listen miss, the birds have been here longer than you!’ ”

This morning, his thoroughbred birds are hopping about, shuffling their wings, and stumbling in and out of the shade. “Coney Island used to be big for pigeons, coops on every other block,” he said, pointing down the block. “There’s no young blood coming in now though.” Martire has two sons in their 20s but, he said, they’re more concerned with girls than pigeons. Martire himself has combined both interests by naming his favorite pigeon after his wife, Anne-Marie. “How ya doin’ Anne-Marie?” he coos, picking up the bird. “See how nice she stays? My little babydoll.”

It isn’t difficult to understand why younger generations are less enthusiastic about their parents’ and grandparents’ hobby. It’s an expensive and time-consuming pastime. Feed — a mixture of oil seeds and barley housed in a rusting Maxwell House coffee tin — costs $40 each week. It’s cheap to buy an average pigeon, somewhere from $2 to $5 for a common bird, but the highest quality pedigrees of the pigeon world can set you back $3,000 (or more in Taiwan, according to Lawrence, where he was once offered $10,000 for a winning homing pigeon.) The Taiwanese, he says, are crazy for pigeons. So too the Spaniards, who Velazquez wistfully says give out gold necklaces with pigeon charms instead of trophies.

Training the young birds takes months of constant attention and dedication. “You have to starve them to break them in,” Martire said, explaining that the birds are trained to treat food and water as a reward. Once they learn they will be fed and given water at a particular pigeon coop, they will always return to that coop, no matter where they are flying from. Doves released at weddings are trained in this way, and are a moneymaking side gig for many of the borough’s pigeon keepers. Anthony C. who works across the street from Martire, and who requested his last name not be published, describes a different use for this homing training. He explains how his uncle trained his pigeons to transport heroin from Coney Island to New Jersey in the early 1960s. “It took three generations of breeding to get them to do it,” he said proudly. “They’d fly back and forward between the coop here and the coop over there,” he said.

Interest in pigeons revived briefly in Coney Island after news broke of Mike Tyson starring in an Animal Planet program at his Brooklyn pigeon loft. Martire was asked to participate in the series, but was ruled ineligible at the last minute because the birds he was flying were too young. “They wouldn’t let me be in it!” he exclaims indignantly. “They used Tyson because he’s a celebrity, but the real truth is I’m the celebrity in racing pigeons!” Martire said, gesturing to the many trophies and pigeon diplomas that line the walls of his shed. Behind him, Velazquez solemnly attests, “I call him the doctor because he’s so good with birds.”

Martire and Velzaquez are members of a 30-strong local homing pigeon club on Stillwell and Avenue Z, just around the corner. The group’s members race their pigeons against each other, as well as in regional competitions across New York. Martire nodded at an official schedule, explaining that everything is organized months in advance. He already knows where he will be on Oct. 7: competing against “the guys from the Bronx” in the memorial race at the World Trade Center. “All the pigeon guys spend time together. We hang out here on Saturdays and argue about who flies the best,” he said. Tending to a group of birds on top of the coop, he added, “I’ve been around pigeons my whole life, you start sounding like them.”

Lawrence parked himself in a shaded deckchair and looked up at his son. “Just mind you don’t start looking like ‘em,” he said.

by Keith Mott

While convoying for the Central Southern Classic Flying Club in 2010, I visited the liberation site at Messac twice and at the 250 mile stage it was one of the best sites I’ve visited in France. The Three Borders Federation had two races out of Messac, with the SMT Combine this season and I’m happy to report that my ol’ mates, Chris Slight and Trevor Taylor of the Esher & District RPC, won the Combine from the race held in June. The Combine sent 1,316 birds and being liberated into a Northerly wind, the members enjoyed a good steady race.

After the race I asked Trevor about the partner latest SMT Combine winner and he told me: ‘The Messac Combine winner is Black yearling hen, now named ‘Non- Returnable’ and was bred by Colin Crook and Andy Iddenden of Epsom. Every year Colin and Andy give us a couple of coloured pigeons to brighten up the loft,as they have always said our loft is too dull with the blues and blue chequers. This little annual practice has gone for about five seasons now! The Messac Combine winner, ‘Non-Returnable’, is a van Reet hen which had already showed us a lot of promise as a young bird in 2009, being in the firstfour birds home every week but was always beaten by loft mates and most often we would geta few birds together but she was a little shy to go through the ETS first. This season as ayearling she did exactly the same, being consistent again in the first three or four birds to the loft every week but one time winning the Esher club from Kingsdownand finishing 18th Three Borders Federation with 1,623 birds competing. We only normally send to Federation races and 2010 was our first year racing hens, and this game little black hen was coming so consistent, sowe decided to send some hens to the London & South East Classic Club, and ‘Non-Returnable’ finished up recording 33rd open Falaise. We kept her racing week by week and on the Wednesday before she won the Combine she had been pairing up with another hen and laid an egg in her box. She was nearly not sent to Messac as it was Thursday night marking and it meant she would lay her second egg in the race crate on the Friday. Chris and I thought this would affect her keenest to race home, how wrong were we! We decided to name her ‘Non-Returnable’ and what a lovely man Colin Crook is! When we phoned him to say we had won the Combine he said come over and get the dam and I must say mother and daughter are like peas in a pod, so much so, if you put them both together you couldn’t tell them apart only from the ring colour’.

The Three Borders Federation held its longest old bird race from Bergerac (450 miles); in south west France in July of 2009 and member enjoyed a good testing race. The convoy was liberated with the SMT Combine at 05.55hrs in no wind at the liberation site and the leading pigeons coped well with the eleven hour fly home. I’m delighted to say that Chris Slight and his partner Trevor Taylor of the Esher & Dist. RPC clocked their champion blue cock, ‘Master Bates’, in a flying time of 10 hours 39 minutes too win the Three Borders Federation and 1st open SMT Combine! This was Chris’ great ambition to win the Combine, having won 2nd open many times and to win from Bergerac, the longest old bird race, has really put the icing on the cake for him. Chris told me, ‘the blue cock is a three year old De Klak / Van Loon cross and has had every Federation race on the widowhood system since he was born, never missing a race, inland and channel. ‘Master Bates’ is the worlds worst trapper and has been home to win the Federation several times, but just sits on the loft looking at me waiting to put him on the clock. The ETS has finely sorted him out, as when he come home I hide and he clocks him self in, with no problems. The 2009 season had seen him win four good Federation positions, finishing the campaign with his 1st Three Borders Federation Bergerac’. Chris and Trevor had won six firsts in the Esher club that season and were delighted to get five birds on the day of liberation from the very hard Bergerac race.

Trevor Taylor is Chris’ nephew and they have been in the pigeon partner for a few seasons. Trevor has been in pigeons all his life and is a third generation fancier, with his grand fathers being the great old Kingston pigeon aces, Jack Taylor and Eddie Chandler. I think I’ve known Chris Slight for nearly 40 years now, in fact he used to drive for Pickford’s house removals and he moved Betty and me in to our first flat over the Gardening shop in Surbiton and that was nearly 38 years ago, when we got married. Chris is the ‘old school’ type pigeon fancier and has no hard and fast system, but records brilliant result every season. Back in the 1970’s we raced in the Kingston club together and today we both fly in the Esher & Dist. RPC. Chris was winning Federations back in the Kingston racing days and he is still winning Federation today. A great fancier!

The 2008 season saw Chris Slight win the Three Borders Federation three times and win ‘Pigeon of the Year’ in the Esher club and the Federation. His top pigeon was a five year old blue chequer named, ‘Fred’ and this game widowhood cock recorded: 1st club, 1st Federation Kingsdown, 1st club, 1st Federation, 2nd open SMT Combine and 4th club, 11th Federation Yelverton. The Esher club secretary, Allen Palmer, won the Three Borders Federation twice in the 2008 season and one of those birds was bred by Chris, and was a son of ‘Fred’. What a pigeon! He has won many other prizes previous to the 2008 season, racing on the widowhood and is off the old Slight family, being a mixture of De Klak, Busschaert and Staf Van Reet. ‘Fred’ was put to stock for the 2009 season, but because the partners were short of racing cocks he was brought out of retirement mid-way through the season and won two more races! Chris’ other 2008 Three Borders Federation winner was the yearling Busschaert blue chequer widowhood cock, ‘Uranus’, and he won 1st club, 1st Federation, 4th open SMT Combine Poitiers. He is a son of Chris’ champion dark Busschaert cock, ‘The Old Fella’, which has recorded many firsts for the Slight loft, including 48th open L&SECC in a very hard Pau race (550 miles) and then being sent back to Bergerac (450 miles) three weeks later to record 2nd open SMT Combine.

Chris races 20 cocks on the widowhood system and stressed to me that he has no hard and fast rules or real system with his pigeon racing management, and will pair up any time in January or February. He races only hens on the system and never breaks them down, feeding a good quality widowhood mixture at all distances, long and short. The Slight pigeons are raced every week through the Federation programme and he told me his favourite races are the middle distance at about 300 miles. His loft is 40ft x 18ft ‘L’ shaped and has always had open door trapping, although he has now installed ETS traps as he started to use the system with young birds in the 2008 season. Chris told me he really enjoys the ETS as he can sit back and enjoy seeing the birds coming in from the races, and maintains the youngsters don’t get spoiled by keep getting picked to be clocked. He has a blue cock which won’t trap because it has been caught so many times and has won about ten second prizes. The widowhood hens are put in with the cocks at lunch time on marking night and allowed to run with their mates until they go in the basket for the journey to the club. He has no hard and fast rule about his system and sometimes leaves the widowhood hens with the racers until Sunday lunch time. The widowhood cocks get an open loft all day, every day and the main families kept are De Klak, Busschaert and Staf Van Reet.

Chris breeds 50 young birds every season, only retaining 35 to race and trains from Petersfield (40 miles) every week. He has never raced the darkness system, but is intending to have a crack at it in 2009 and races natural to the perch. The Slight young birds are allowed to do as they like and Chris has won some good races with youngsters sent sitting eggs, and small babies. He told me he didn’t enjoy young bird racing, but sends them through the Federation programme to the longest race for education and they also get an open loft every day. The young hens are raced well in the year of their birth, but once they are in the widowhood loft they are never raced, although Chris is toying with the idea of racing a few widowhood hens next season. Chris keeps very few stock pigeon, but has a few De Klaks from Steve Clackston of Kingston and his best retired Busschaert racers. He pairs his stock pigeons up the same time as the widowhood cock so the eggs can be floated in the race sections.

Chris has been racing pigeon on his own since he came out of the army in 1975 and has won many 1st Federation prizes from Blandford (85 miles) through to Bergerac (450 miles), and has been 2nd open Combine nine or ten times, but has never won the Combine. In fact recently he recorded 2nd open SMT Combine twice in one season! His first pigeons were raced to his sister’s garage and he won his first race from Exeter with a mealy hen in the old Kingston club. He is now a member of the Esher & Dist. RPC and L&SECC, and tells me he prefers north road racing. His father, Lewis Slight, and his uncles were all good fanciers in his home town of Portsmouth and they were all north roaders. When Chris was a young lad, 50 years ago, a local fancier gave him a pigeon and his dad wouldn’t let him put it in his loft, so he had to keep it in an old rabbit hutch. He sent that pigeon to Lerwick (550 miles) and won the race and his dad didn’t clock in! Chris maintains the sport is too much money orientated which is spoiling it, but really likes the ETS system and says it’s the way forward.

That’s it for this week! Congratulations to Chris and Trevor for their Messac Combine win, it was a great performance! I can be contacted with any pigeon comment on telephone number: 01372 463480.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.

By JASON RYAN

Palmetto Pigeon Plant in Sumter County is one of three producers of squab, or young pigeons, on the continent. Besides raising the pigeons for fancy restaurants, Asian Americans and upscale eaters, the organic company supplies Cornish hen to growing supermarket chain Whole Foods. Here, the squab pens allow for the birds to fly and get sunlight.

SUMTER — Tucked back off busy Broad Street, hidden behind a set of new offices, sit row after row after row of pigeon coops.

They’re caked with feathers and feed.

The floors sag.

The fluttering pigeons, pristine white, appear cleaner than their homes.

In these former cotton fields, smack-dab in the middle of Sumter, live about 40,000 caged pigeons.

Their mission: eat, mate, and if female, plop out pairs of eggs.

The 515 coops are part of Palmetto Pigeon Plant, one of the nation’s largest producers of squab, or baby pigeons. In 2002, there were 450,000 of the cooing fowl on farms around the country, according to a Department of Agriculture census.

Here, in their downtown location, Palmetto Pigeon Plant also processes silky chicken, Cornish hen and poussin — thousands of birds killed, bled, scalded and picked clean along an assembly line each day before being bagged, iced and shipped.

It was opened in 1923, when squab was a common food for farm families.

Now the business has bloomed again, catering to Asian-Americans and a growing health food market.

“Incomes have risen, people are spending more money on food,” said owner and operator Tony Barwick. “It’s antibiotic free. It’s all natural, so it appeals to that crowd.”

Palmetto Pigeon Plant is one of a handful of Sumter poultry companies, including Manchester Farms, a quail producer, and Gold Kist, which produces chicken. All three participate in the city’s annual Poultry Night, which occurs Thursday.

Twenty years ago the plant had $500,000 in sales, Barwick said. This year, sales could reach $6 million, with customers that include Earth Fare and Whole Foods supermarkets.

He’d like to take credit for the company’s growth, Barwick said, but it has been fueled almost entirely by demand from health-conscious consumers and Asian-Americans.

“They eat squab like we eat steak,” said Barwick, who bought a majority of the company 10 years ago when he was the plant’s general manager, supplanting longtime family interests.

COMPANY HISTORY

Palmetto Pigeon Plant was established in 1923 by brothers Harold and Davis Moise and Wendell M. Levi, a World War I Army captain who began the pigeon section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, according to the South Carolina Encyclopedia.

Levi, who raised pigeons as a boy, became a nationally known scholar on the birds, publishing tomes such as “The Pigeon” and “Encyclopedia of Pigeon Breeds.”

Many of the company’s coops and farm buildings, processing plant excluded, were built in the 1920s and ’30s.

Workers in old clothes roam the pastoral, dusty grounds on breaks, some speckled with blood from freshly slaughtered poultry.

There’s a larger 250-acre farm nearby in Pinewood. As the business expands, Barwick said he plans to raise all animals there.

The plant and offices in Sumter will stay put, though, close to where most of the company’s 77 employees live.

STRIPPED, WEIGHED, SEALED

Squab are taken from their nests at four weeks of age, before they can fly.

Barwick says giving the birds sunlight and space reduces disease, pointing to coops he says are relatively spacious.

Their short lives are spent eating and excreting. Much of their small, bladder-like bodies are filled with food regurgitated by their parents — vegetable meal, corn kernels and grit at different stages of digestion.

When they’re brought to be slaughtered and processed, they pass through three small rooms packed tight with machinery and apron-clad workers.

The birds’ bodies are stripped of organs, heads and feet, weighed, sealed in shrinking plastic and moved to one of the plant’s many freezers.

Before being bagged, the neck is clipped and put inside the hollow bird, the skin stretched to contain it.

“It looks better with the skin pulled over,” said plant manager Christie Hadwin, presenting an attractively packaged poussin, or baby chicken, that took minutes to produce and is now ready for the gourmet supermarket cooler.

Hadwin is the plant’s general, pacing the floor in rubber boots and a hairnet, yelling to employees when their cuts are sloppy or to tell them to slow down to allow a co-worker to catch up.

By day’s end, the floors and machines are wiped clean.

Just like its unassuming spot in Sumter, you’d never know that it’s the scene of large-scale squab processing.

But still, there’s lots of room to grow.

Barwick said he needs to double capacity every 10 years to keep pace with domestic demand.

And North American consumption of squab pales with the rest of the world, especially Europe and Asia.

“We have a long ways to go,” Barwick said.

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