Poland…Hidden Paradise for Racing Pigeons

Two-year old female pigeon named New Kim is shown in an auction in Knesselare, Belgium, Nov. 15, 2020. (AP)
Two-year old female pigeon named New Kim is shown in an auction in Knesselare, Belgium, Nov. 15, 2020. (AP)
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Poland…Hidden Paradise for Racing Pigeons

Two-year old female pigeon named New Kim is shown in an auction in Knesselare, Belgium, Nov. 15, 2020. (AP)
Two-year old female pigeon named New Kim is shown in an auction in Knesselare, Belgium, Nov. 15, 2020. (AP)

Poland boasts Europe's biggest community of homing pigeon breeders but fails to compete with other countries like Belgium and The Netherlands.

"My birds are athletes. You have to train the pigeons to get them into shape, monitor their health, feed them well," says pigeon fancier Michal Trojczak while opening one of his many cages. More than 70 dusty-blue pigeons take flight, soaring high above snow-covered fields in Królewiec, around 45 km eastern Warsaw.

Released hundreds of kilometers from their pigeon lofts, the birds find their way home thanks to an ability to detect the earth's magnetic field and orient themselves according to the sun. The birds can reach up to 120 kilometers per hour. Pigeon lofts are a part of Poland's landscape especially in the mining region of Silesia, where pigeon breeding has historic roots, and the birds enjoy near-mythic status.

After a day underground, it's still common to see miners emerge into the daylight, scanning the skies for their winged friends. "With more than 40,000 members, we're the largest organization of its kind in Europe, founded more than 100 years ago," said Krzysztof Kawaler, head of the Polish association of homing pigeon breeders. "We take home the most prizes at international competitions," he noted.

France and Belgium -- where pigeon fancying has deep roots -- have around 10,000 and 13,000 breeders respectively, according to their associations.

Every country holds its own local races in which the pigeons are equipped with electronic rings to record their flight time. The results are calculated across the countries using coefficients that notably take into account the number of participating pigeons. "But it doesn't reflect the pigeons' actual worth," Michal Trojczak stresses, lamenting that Polish pigeon fanciers are still viewed as amateurs in Western Europe.

"On the Polish market, pigeons go for between 250 zlotys (around 55 euros) and four, five or even six thousand zlotys for those that participate in international tournaments," said Zbigniew Oleksiak, veteran breeder for 30 years.

In Western Europe, however, prices start at around 200 euros but can go sky high, like the Belgian pigeon, Armando, bought by a Chinese breeder for 1.25 million euros at auction in 2019. The following year, New Kim, another Belgian female bird sold for 1.6 million euros for a Chinese buyer too. Like racehorses, it is the pedigree -- the bird's family tree -- that matters to buyers, especially those from Asia. Poland suffers a serious shortage in this pedigree.

Trojczak said he had turned professional after retiring a few years ago. He teamed up with a friend and bought Belgian pigeons with prestigious pricey pedigrees. “When you have to prep the birds for a race, sometimes I'll be up and running at 4:00 a.m. and won't finish till 9:00 p.m., in spring and summer days,” he said.

He now sells around 100 pigeons a year at prices ranging from 100 to 2,500 euros, which allows him to "live quite comfortably when combined with my military pension.” The former soldier expects Polish fanciers to become able to compete Belgian and Dutch breeders within 10 years. But he also expected the number of breeders to drop by half.



Melania Trump Meets with Patients, Visits Garden at Washington Children’s Hospital

 US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
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Melania Trump Meets with Patients, Visits Garden at Washington Children’s Hospital

 US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)

US First Lady Melania Trump visited with sick patients at Children’s National hospital in Washington on Thursday as the children made Fourth of July arts and crafts ahead of the holiday.

Trump, continuing a tradition of support by first ladies for the pediatric care center, also stopped by the hospital's rooftop “healing” garden she dedicated during the first Trump administration to first ladies of the United States.

The first lady decorated rocks for the garden with the children, drawing a red heart on one. A few kids played with stretchy slime while Trump engaged them in questions.

“Wow, that’s a big slime!” she told one child that was more focused on stretching the sticky goo.

Trump gave each of the children gift bags with blankets and teddy bears that had shirts reading, “Be Best,” her campaign focused on children’s well-being.

She quizzed the kids on their favorite sports, what music they like and how they’re feeling. Trump also took an informal poll, asking the kids whether they like chocolate and ice cream.

Most of the hands shot up, including the first lady’s.

“I like it too,” she said.

She then took the children out to the Bunny Mellon Healing Garden, where they placed small American flags and patriotically-colored pinwheels into the soil.

The garden, decked out in decorations for Independence Day on Friday, was named to honor Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, a friend of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Mellon was a philanthropist and avid gardener who designed the Rose Garden and other White House gardens during the Kennedy administration.

The garden was dedicated to America’s first ladies because of their decades-long support for the hospital and its patients, including a traditional first lady visit at Christmastime that dates back to Bess Truman.

Trump, along with chief White House groundskeeper Dale Haney, inspected a new yellow rose bush donated by the White House and planted earlier in the week at the hospital garden.

After, the first lady visited the heart and kidney unit at the hospital and met privately with a 3-year-old patient.

Later Thursday, the first lady joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office where they met with Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage in Gaza, who was released in May.