Escampadissa

My breeding birds came from the pigeon loft of Sr.Tomeu from the island of Mallorca - Spain. If you need any info about these pigeons, just contact me by email.

>> ATTENTION <<

The Escampadissa is not a Tumbler or Roller pigeon!

Ive seen on some websites people calling them Escampadissa Roller.

That's not true!

Their only air performance are:

High Flying, Vertical Flying (as described in the article below) and Diving.

The first and foremost characteristic of the Spanish Escampadissa its his flying style. The people who know this breed well are somewhat lost for words when asked to explain this unique flying style using only words. They always take to making gestures with their arms or hands to make clear what they are attempting to explain.

As already mentioned, the Escampadissa is foremost a solo flyer and no matter if they fly at a normal height or extremely high, they have a flying pattern that gives the appearance as if the birds were executing rhythmical movements of the wings, strong but slower and calmer than a normal wing movement. You could say that they float in mid air sometimes giving the impression of defying gravity. It is really an extraordinary movement of the wings when compared to the wing movements of other breeds of pigeons.

You could say that if you follow a single pigeon with your eyes, you can count the individual wing movements. The closest comparison would be the harmonious and rhythmical movement of the oars of a boat.

The closest comparison in the animal kingdom would be a bird called the hoopoe (Upupa epops) that is a member of the kingfisher family. As far as the movement of the wings is concerned there are similarities, just as a simple way of explaining it, but the actual flight of Escampadissa and the hoopoe mustn't be compared. The hoopoe's flight traces an imaginary sinusoid or sine wave-like line; the Escampadissa's flight however is not that way. Both birds simply share the way they move their wings.

The Escampadissa should fly in the above-mentioned way and if you observe the birds in flight from the ground, you should be able to see how the birds cross their flights while flying. This action is called "estrčnyer bé" in Mallorca, which means "to push well" and that's why you will often hear comments like "no estrčnyer bé", i.e. "doesn't push well", "doesn't push enough" or "doesn't cross the flights enough" when a bird fails to show a well-defined flying style. The flying figure of an Escampadissa is usually referred to as "el gra d'ord" in Malloran, the common description of the geometrical shape of a rhombus. The edges of this rhombus are the beak, the tip of the tail and the shoulders.

This is the typical and perfect flying style of an Escampadissa with the typical movement of the wings. However, not all the birds will execute this style to the highest degree. It is more likely that only the fewest birds in a kit will always show this flying style. Other birds will show it every now and then and there are others that simply won't show the typical flight at all. The great art consists in being able tell the good flyers apart from the bad ones, being able to follow the development of an individual bird to see if the bird improves in flying style, and of course finally being able to exclude the really bad birds from the breeding pen. You have to keep this in mind and be aware that it is not enough to put the birds in your loft and release them awaiting to then see a first-class performance of the birds.

I've read quite a number of pigeon books-some of them really extensive works but so far I have never found a paragraph really describing the flying style of the Escampadissa, not even when people are trying to write about the Escampadissa itself. I've used the words "are trying to" because they never enter into the details of the bird nor speak about the true characteristics of the breed. This is proof once again that many authors settle for an incomplete description of the breed without knowing the breed. The results are sometimes misleading.

The "arruixada"

This is the word commonly used to describe the whole process of flying Escampadissas, i.e. from releasing the birds and their flight caused by the breeder's action. In Mallorcan, the breeder of Escampadissa is commonly referred to with the word "escampadisser".

The word "arruixar", a word that has various meanings, could be translated in this special case as "chasing up", i.e. scare the birds to make them fly up and this is the classical way of flying these birds.

Once the loft door is open, the birds will go out of the loft, though most often you have to drive them out of the loft and they will perch on top of the loft. The breeder first calms down his birds by whistling to them, then later on scares them with a large pole with a kind of flag attached to its top end that waves briskly when shaken. Ideally, brandishing this flag once should be enough to make the birds take off.

When they are off flying, the birds kit together, however they do not rise quickly but rather slowly, you could even say rather lazily. Their kit action is rather tight, sometimes it seems as if the wings were touching and sometimes you can even hear it. In this early phase of the flight, the wing movement is very normal and you might think they are drawn up by a string.

When the birds have reached a height between 330 - 490 feet, the kit will start breaking up and each bird will fly on its own. This practice is called "esfullar-se" in Mallorcan and this is when the Escampadissa start showing off their abilities. Some birds go to one side, others to the opposite direction and it's next to impossible to follow all the birds at once from the ground.

This is also the time when you can see the differing flying abilities of the birds. Some of the birds refuse to rise higher. They start descending and land on the roof loft. Other birds will continue to gain height and will start their typical wing movements. There are also birds that will circle the loft and will sooner or later return to the loft. Additionally there are birds that will rise up very high, sometimes that high that you can't spot them anymore performing all the time their typical wing movement.

After a while the birds that reached invisibility will descend again and the spectator will first spot them as little moving dots up in the blue that grow bigger and bigger. The birds will land, sometimes a single bird, sometimes in groups of two or three birds, a little bit dispersed and if you follow one bird with your eyes you won't be able to see the others. Also when the birds land they should show their flying style and you will be able to tell if they are good performers or not. When the last bird has landed and all the birds are on top of the loft, the birds are sent back in and they get fed and locked up till the next flight.

The duration of such a flight could be, to be acceptable, about 45 minutes though sometimes the flying time is about an hour or a little more.

During the entire arruixada or performance flight the breeder has to watch his birds closely in order not to miss any important details. There are birds that will always show the typical flying style. That means they always stick to the rhythmical movement of their wings, they "push well", keep up their rhythm and rise and sink gently in a movement which produces an image of tranquility and relaxation. There are, however, other specimens that don't have such a well-defined flying style. They don't know how to "push well"and their flight seems to be very nervous.

Then there are others that don't even try pushing well, their flight is pretty normal and they finish it off by plummeting from the skies towards the loft. They zoom down from the sky like bullets to land on the loft roof. You can see that their wings are held tightly knit to the body and that they come down at a tremendous speed suddenly making a cold stop on the roof. Some of the birds are pumping for air, in other birds you wouldn't be able to tell that there was any exertion at all. They don't seem tired but all of this of course depends on the birds' physical condition.

Though the diving of the birds is not really appreciated by the classical Escampadissa breeders, it certainly is impressive to the general spectator of the performance.

Escampadissa and Falcons

The most interesting and pleasing thing of course to any serious Escampadissa breeder is a well-defined performance of the birds, i.e. if they know how to push well, that they have the laid-back flying style, smooth and calm without diving down from the sky. If the birds additionally rise to great heights, the better but above all it's the correct flying style that matters. Most pigeons don't initially live up to the expectations and don't fly as well as they are supposed to but many improve as time goes by and end up being birds with a good flying style.

The particular flying style of the breed makes the Escampadissa prone to hawk attacks and since the Escampadissa is a solo flyer, it is an easy victim for the birds of prey.

It's true that back in the days when the Escampadissa were flown more frequently at Palma de Mallorca, many people entertained themselves with watching the birds fly. Whenever a hawk showed up, the people would start yelling and making noises in the good intention of scaring the hawk away, watching the birds trying to outfly the hawk and the hawk chasing the pigeons. Sometimes the birds succeeded and sometimes it was the hawk leaving as the victorious one. This, however, its not unique to the Escampadissa but happens in other flying breeds.

To sum it up: The Escampadissa is above all a flying breed that has to perform the way as explained before, i.e. with the typical movement of the wings and unusual movements in the air. It's an added benefit if the birds know to fly to great heights and even better if the birds manage to outfly the hawk.

Of course there will be times when some birds or even an entire kit will refuse to fly and then it's quite tough to motivate the birds and make them fly. The reasons for it can be manifold: the birds may be out of condition or they may have suffered from too many hawk attacks in a short time and be scared. Most often, the birds can sense the presence of their enemy even though they can't see it. The best way is to keep the birds locked up in the loft for a couple of days and restart flying the birds later. Sometimes the birds will fly also in groups of 2 or 3 birds, and show then a rather normal flying style, without crossing the flights like they should do. Generally you could say that the really high-class flying birds do not rise to great heights but stay in the visible range. There are birds that will separate themselves from the kit right at the beginning of a flying session and these birds are most likely to be the first ones to land again.

Getting the birds ready for the flight

Before you can expect your birds to fly you have to get them ready to perform. This means the birds have to get used to their surroundings and they have to gain confidence. Basically, this procedure must begin at weaning age, at about 30 days of age. The loft door gets opened and the birds can get in and out at their own will to get to know their surroundings. The birds shouldn't be chased up nor driven away from the loft when they get back in, because this would be rather counterproductive for the process. The birds will thrive with their growing confidence and their abilities are innate to them, the peculiar way of flying is already in their blood.

When the training gets serious, the birds have to be kept inside the loft. They are only released when it is time to fly and they are only fed when they get land again inside the loft. If you add birds to a kit that has already flown as a team, be it young birds or adults, you have to wait a little while till the new birds have found their place in the kit and release them with the other birds. Adding new birds to the kit of course has an influence also on the flying training of the other birds.

The appropriate time for the arruixada

The traditional and most suited time to make the Escampadissa fly starts in October-November (depending on the progress of the moult) and ends in April-May when spring starts and the common swifts start arriving in the Balearic Isles. It is said that the rapid flight of these small birds with their sudden change of direction interferes with the calm and laid-back flying style of the Escampadissa. This is, of course, a rather questionable statement and there are breeders who fly their birds beyond April-May. It is certain, however that the hot summer months and the time of the moult are not the best times to fly the birds.

The "arruixada"

Escampadissa and Falcons

Getting the birds ready for the flight

The appropriate time for the arruixada

Meteorological effects