Normally I would say, I have no idea what happened on a race like today, however this time I have a pretty good idea. Red Rock, MT is in a big valley. We always release on the east side of that valley because ideally the birds need to stay to the east to hit the pass at Lima, MT to come up and over and drop back down into Spencer and across the Snake River Plains. The release went perfect. The birds didn’t even circle, they disappeared straight south and east, but I was able to catch up to them about 10 miles to the south and the whole flock had crossed the freeway and were hugging the mountains clear to the west. There’s a couple big canyons that way and if they go that way, it’s a long rough way home. They missed the first one, and I watched them until the terrain made it impossible to see them. So I am guessing they flew west into the second big canyon. The weather was just what it was calling for which was slight headwinds 5-7 mph on and off the whole racecourse.
I fed them for a tough race because of the headwinds being called for. So they should have enough groceries to get them back. There was a group of 5 birds that came back from the south. That’s all the information I have. So hopefully we will eventually get most of them back. Good Luck to everyone.
