Sky View Loft

About Sky View Loft

Pigeons in the aviary. I am a Croatian American who moved from Europe to the States in 1999. I bought a house in 2000, and when things settled down a little, I returned to the pigeon sport in 2002.

Pigeons have been a part of my life since I was 10 years old, but this time I returned to it with much more determination. For the next 6 years, I studied everything again in much more detail. I collected many books and hundreds of racing pigeon articles. I was bringing new birds into the loft and studying them again and more carefully.

2008 was the year I finally joined the local racing pigeon club, Greater Atlanta Racing Pigeon Club, which was the only one I knew about at the time. I attended their regular monthly meeting and I found out about another brand new racing pigeon club in my area called North Atlanta Racing Pigeon Club.

Based on my location, I was told I belonged more to North Atlanta, otherwise, I'd be facing the fact that I would be 40 or more miles longer than some of the best flyers in the club. However, I joined Greater Atlanta Club anyways because I was ready to finally test some of my young birds, and I did not want to wait any longer.

The 2008 young bird season was going to be the first test for my young birds against others and I could not wait for it. In the summer of the same year, I went for a vacation to Europe for about a month. When I came back, the racing season was quickly approaching.
Knowing that I was behind, I tried to speed up the preparation of my team. I jumped on the road for training tosses to prepare them as quickly as I could. It was a little too rushed though. I overworked them and lost a few good birds.

Hiking with my family, Yonah Mountain 2016. The season was about to start and I had a team of eleven birds to race. It wasn't the number I was hoping to start with, but there was no way I could wait another year to test what I had. I remember I felt confident. I do not even know why or where that came from because I did not have any idea who I'm going to race against or what kind of pigeons others were flying. I believed in my work and my small team of young birds. I was ready to go for it and see what would happen.

It was time for the first 100 mile race. This was it! All eleven were ready and I shipped them all. While I was waiting on the back porch, I felt the adrenaline kick in when I spotted my first pigeon dive in. What a wonderful feeling! That's what it's all about…the feeling I have been waiting for six long years. In that second I thought, "I wish I didn't wait this long to start racing them. The feeling is just too good."

My Janssen dark check cock "55213" clocked in first. Unfortunately, he lost about two minutes by staying on top of the loft, letting me know that there was something else for me to work on.

The race results were up the same night, and my Janssen cock took the 14th place out of 316 total birds in the race. Even if he didn't lose those two minutes, he wouldn't have won first place. Out of the eleven I shipped, four of them scored in the top 10%, and the fifth one missed it by just one percent.

Pigeons in the aviary. Later in the season, I scored some more high positions including: 2nd at 150 miles, 3rd at 200 miles, and 1st place combine at 250 miles with the "55213." In the 250 mile race, I only shipped 4 pigeons, three of which scored in the top 20%.

My best young bird was also a Janssen, a blue bar cock "55247." Out of the nine races we flew in that season, this pigeon was in the top 10% five times, in the top 20% three times, and only once did he miss the top 20% for the club, but he was good for the top 20% in the combine. He was the 5th Ace Young Pigeon for 2008. Two years later, he surprised many flyers in the club when he won 1st place in a 300 mile race with head winds of 10-15 mph and a winning speed of 1,222 ypm. As a long-ender, having a pigeon win while flying against head winds was pretty surprising.

At the end of the season, I was the 3rd best loft in the club and combine (out of 38 members flying the combine that season). I took the 112th place, or top 7%, on the National Level - Champion Loft. For it being the first time testing these birds, I had to proudly say, "Not bad, not bad at all!" I was happy to see I was on a good track and that my work was not a waste of time. That work will pay off much more in the near future.

For the next few seasons until 2011, I continued to breed a small number of pigeons for my racing team. I quickly became recognized as a flyer that shipped only a few birds and still posed a big threat.

I love hiking. This is Blue Ridge Parkway in NC. I won 1st place in more than a few races while only shipping 4 birds. The least number of birds that I shipped and won first place in the race was 3 pigeons. This particular race was a very sweet one. It was very tough, with head winds at the release, which became side winds at the arrival.

The second place pigeon in this race was from a short-end loft (36 miles shorter than me), but it was still 9 minutes and 28 seconds behind my pigeon. This incredible pigeon is a son bred out of my two champion birds. He did not win this race only because of his superior athleticism, but because of his intelligence and stamina too!

In 2011, I was finally ready to move to North Atlanta RPC, where my loft location was still on the long end but had less of a difference in distance compared to the other flyers.
Also in 2011, I started to breed more pigeons for my 2012 OB racing team in order to be able to meet the shipping limit of 20 birds per race.
This is how it started in the 2012 Old Bird racing season:
In the first 100 mile "A" Race, I placed the first 15 positions out of the 303 pigeons in the race, and in the "B" Race, I placed the first 4 positions. However, out of the first 17 positions in the B race, a total of 13 of them were from Sky View Loft.

About My Pigeons

Before I mention any bloodlines of my pigeons that I might have in my breeding stock, I would like to add the fact that I am not a big believer in the bloodline term. In my opinion, it is overused and perhaps, many times, should not be used at all.
Why?
Evidently, these original pigeons end up in different lofts around the world, and through the continuity of breeding and blending, they just differ from their originality too much. Because of this, I have a hard time being satisfied with the originality of that bloodline anymore.

Pigeons in the aviary. However, I definitely believe in a bloodline of champions. For instance, I am not sure what I will get if I breed bloodline X with bloodline X, or X and Y bloodlines, but I'm pretty positive that I will get some very good birds if I mate a champion with another champion. That is the blood line that I trust in the most!

Despite the fact that I prefer to breed out of champions or other very proven birds, I am still very particular in the way I pair these birds based on their various aspects. There is no question that if there's no success in a breeding season then all roads stop there. Sky View Loft originally breeds from several lines of pigeons.

For years I have been line breeding, inbreeding, crossing, and constantly selecting them. I was selecting them very meticulously, so that I now have much better generations of pigeons than I originally started with. Of course, the start had to be with quality birds. Otherwise, I would spend a lifetime searching for something that doesn't exist.

In turn, here is the current list of the most popular birds that you can see in my breeders' pedigrees:
Super Crack Olympiade 699, (Vadenabeele's) Den Wittenbuik, Albert, Kate, Sarkozy, Al Pachino, (Van de Pol's) Holle Rug, then: Topo, Golden Mattens, Rocket, Hollywood, Mona Lisa, Sure Bet, Phantom, Creator, as well as (Theo Yskout's) De Playboy, and (Janssen Arendonk's originals) Jef and De Keizer.

Race Results - Highlights

The SVL is not a big loft and for some time, I used to breed only several birds to race. Even then, I was winning first place despite the fact that I shipped only a few pigeons or so!

"The wall of fame" But the disadvantage of flying a very small team is the fact that you cannot compete for the highest positions as a Team Score/Champion Loft. This is because you simply don’t have enough birds flying to accumulate enough points for the highest position.

A similar problem could be with the Average Speed Awards. When you fly only a few birds, your chances are smaller because there is always something that can go wrong with few birds in a race. On the other hand, having more of them increases your chances, since there is greater likelihood that some bird(s) will have a good average speed.

At the end of the day, the best part of it all is that a quality bird can always win a race, even if you ship only one! That’s why your chances of winning 1st Place in any given race and receiving Ace Pigeon Awards are not limited, even with a team of only few pigeons!

Since 2012, I have been concentrating more on the old birds, and if I had to drop either of these two seasons, it definitely would be the young birds.
Below are the highlights what I have won from the 2008 YB season to the end of 2018, skipping 7 YB seasons, so far. Click on any title below to open (or close) the vertical sliding window, and see it's highlighted results:

Soft Feathers Photography

One of my oldest cameras, Canon AE-1 Program.
My interest in photography has existed for most of my life, and it was a direct continuation of my involvement and passion for art since at very early age.

Pigeon photography itself is something that came a little later in my life but is still very special to me and is a logical combination of two passions of mine: photography and pigeons.

Furthermore, pigeon photography got me involved into different kinds of graphic design for the racing pigeon sport, such as advertising for magazines, brochures, and catalogs, as well as custom designing racing pigeon websites.

My pigeon photography also got me involved in the graphic design and editing of a yearbook for the Dixie Southern Racing Pigeon Association, not only once but two years in a row. Being the only graphic designer and editor means that I completed this project completely on my own, except for printing where a professional printing company got involved.