|
>>
ATTENTION
<<
1.The Escampadissa is not a Tumbler or Roller
pigeon!
2.There
is no reason for some people to
call them:Escampadissa roller.
3.There
is no show type Escampadissa!
4.There
is only the "flying type"
Escampadissa.
5.The
Escampadissa is a High Flying,
Vertical Flying
(as described in the article below) and Diving
pigeon.
6.Escampadissa
should be judged in
pigeon shows by the spanish
standard wich its based on the "flying
type" Escampadissa.
Castellà: Paloma de Escampadissa
Català: Colom d'Escampadissa
French: Pigeon d'Escampadissa
English: Escampadissa pigeon
Dutch: Escampadissa duif
German: Escampadissa taube
|
The flight of
the Escampadissa
by
Jaume
Montserrat Riera
translated
from Catalan to English
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.
Top of This Page
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
"estrènyer bé" in Mallorca, which means "to
push well" and that's why you will often
hear comments like "no estrènyer 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.
2008 young
birds.
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.
The birds of the last group
reach invisibility and if the observer
doesn't have the option to lay down and
watch the skies, he's prone to getting a
pain in the neck because he has to stand
with his head bent backwards scanning the
sky for the birds. The spectator, of course,
tries to watch the entire kit. The birds
which are not all that high with their
circling flying pattern with the typical
wing movement can be spotted most easily,
thus the breeder is able to tell the good
flying birds apart from the bad ones. When
the flight reaches its end, the birds come
down, some of them sooner, the others later.
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.
Top of This Page
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.
Meteorological effects
Another
important subject is the effect of the
weather on the flight of the birds. You have
to know that the Escampadissa has a very
weak sense of orientation and if they are
forced to leave the vicinity of the loft for
whatever reason, you may suffer losses of
birds. That is why the birds shouldn't be
flown on windy days since the Escampadissa
is a rather light-weight breed with a long
tail, hence it's displaced easily by strong
winds. Also on cloudy days the birds should
be kept inside the loft as low clouds can
easily obstruct the birds' vision when they
are above the clouds and losses of birds are
the logical consequence.
author
of this article: Jaume Montserrat
Riera
photos
by: Pedro J. P. Bento
Information about Escampadissa and other
animals from the Baleares islands
Top of This Page
| 
