A lot of people just think they're rats with wings
cause they just see wild pigeons out everywhere
but racing pigeons aren't like that, their completely different birds.
Definitely always looking for young people that might be interested.
If I could find one that'll come in the backyard and help me clean the pigeons that'd be good.
Not enough young people are getting involved, that's why I'm pushing it to the younger generation.
They're missing out on something really good.
Yeah they're missing out a little bit.
It's just different to see a massive mob of pigeons flying up.
Yeah.
It's a sight to see.
Here we go. Come on. You wanna come through? Good boy.
My names Rich Perkins.
I've been in racing pigeons
since I was about 26 years old.
And now I'm 70's.
In that time pigeon racing's changed quite a bit.
I think the heyday of pigeon racing was probably in the seventies.
Aw I know where this, this is is in Eden.
It was the Rosebud breeders plate.
It was a big money race.
One of the biggest money races around in them days.
We used to pay out up to $7000 in prize money.
Yeah there wasn't much around like that back in them days.
There were more working class people
of a lot of nationalities
Italians, Greeks, Dutch.
So the fellas would all get to the club and you'd hear all these accents and they’d be laughing and jovial
There's probably a lot of emphasis on winning nowadays.
It's become a bit more like horse racing I suppose.
Some people wont like me saying that,
but that's the truth you know.
Yeah it's a lucrative sport of course it is.
Next year we've got a $100,000 first prize race.
Everybody’s working on that race. I can tell you cause there's a lot of interest in it.
My name is Ivan Fonti
and I've been racing pigeons on and off for about 30 years.
This is my loft. This is where I race from
These are thoroughbred pigeons,
same as a race horse,
same as a greyhound.
They're athletes
especially bred for racing.
This is my breeding section.
So this is a baby pigeon. This one's about...
two and a half weeks old.
The most expensive pigeon in the world
recently sold for five hundred thousand euro.
There's a lot of work involved in it.
As with any sport you gotta train.
And you have to trained them to be homed,
so that they know where they are, where they live.
We go from 100 kilometres all the way up to around 800 kilometres in a race.
And they can handle it believe me.
If you keep the birds tip top you're lucky to lose maybe five per cent.
We've got problems with falcons.
Falcons grab them for their dinner and that's how you lose them usually.
Sometimes I fret for fourteen days for a bird, you know?
So you get very attached, like a dog or a cat.
It's the same.
I don't race a big team. I got about 120 birds.
Look there's one that's just come home.
From a race.
He hasn't been home for two weeks that bird and he's just come home now.
That's a bird that I was fretting for and he's and he's home.
Can you keep filming this? Because this is really interesting.
Bring him in Antonio. Bring him in.
Just walk around slowly.
Come on. There he goes. He's in.
There he is.
He's still in good condition.
He's not hurt at all.
At all.
Look how happy he is.
To be home.
He's wrapped. Aren't ya?
Oh you good boy.
Yeah you little beauty.
The pigeon that worked a miracle. It's a great story.
It's basically about a little boy that was in a wheelchair
his favourite pigeon came home injured
and he got out of the wheelchair to
actually retrieve the pigeon cause he was so concerned about it being injured.
Well I love my pigeons. Y'know?
They're very special to me.
If you ask most pigeon flyers,
“What's the best thing about pigeon racing?”
they’ll say to see the birds come home.
People down the club are always saying we've got to promote it Ivan,
Y'know? And we can get more people interested and involved in it.
And I thought to myself, we'll do a pigeon radio show.
Three minutes past 7 o'clock here on 88.9 Wyn FM the sound of the west.
You're tuned to Pigeon Radio Australia.
Everyone always asks me, they go what the hell do you talk about for two hours
and I go, pigeons!
That's what we talk about.
How can you talk about pigeons for two hours?
And I says mate tune in.
It’s very interesting. There's a lot of things to talk about.
We've got the whole world tuning into us.
All of Malta listens to us.
Croatia listening to me,
I’ve got Russia listening to me,
I've got Romania listening to me
I get messages, like I've had to change my phone number literally because I can't,
I'm sick of answering the phone.
The reason I think younger people are not as involved as they were in the past is
a lot of them are living in units or houses in where they only have small backyards.
It's very hard to push it to the younger generation
when you're competing against iPhones and Microsoft Office and Microsoft Word
and all that sort of thing.
If these kids had pigeons they wouldn't have time to think about drugs or anything else
or smashing windows in the city.
They'd be busy with their pigeons
You get one fifteen year old join he goes and tells his mates at school all about it
they tell their mates
and thats how things grow.
My name is Justin Tenaglia, I'm 15 years old.
I live in Diggers Rest, Victoria.
Just outside of Melbourne.
It used to be like a country town,
but now it's getting built up around here.
But I live on a farm.
I started last year, just muck around.
I actually took his basketball ring out the back
where his pigeon loft is,
set it all up for him so he could play basketball
and watch his birds flying at the same time.
My friends originally thought it was a bit weird.
Once they found out they flew 700 miles,
they were a bit impressed.
I'll show you my favourite one.
I got a few but yeah.
This is my favourite one.
She came thirteenth
so she was the thirteenth fastest bird home.
I don't know why I'm drawn to it, I just...
love it.
Like, birds have no fear.
They just keep coming, no matter what.
We wait together on race day.
We sit there together and we bond.
It's a great thing.
You don't get to do that all the time.
It's something that I'll cherish forever.
I'll tell you what, some of the older people that have been doing it for 30 - 40 years
haven't accomplished things that this little 15 year old guy has accomplished.
I think he's gonna be a champion in the sport.
I can't really say how long I believe I'll keep them for.
Until I get bored of it I guess.
Not any time sooner I don't reckon.