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.



Aloha, Bavaria! Munich Surfers Riding Wild River Wave Again

Aloha, Bavaria! Munich Surfers Riding Wild River Wave Again
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Aloha, Bavaria! Munich Surfers Riding Wild River Wave Again

Aloha, Bavaria! Munich Surfers Riding Wild River Wave Again

Surfing enthusiasts have cheered the reopening of a beloved whitewater site in downtown Munich, the German city better known for partying at Oktoberfest than splashing in the waves.

The Eisbach ("ice brook") standing wave in the city's Englischer Garten park was closed after tragedy struck in April when a 33-year-old woman drowned during a nighttime winter surf.

After a safety review and a petition to keep it open, the site -- just a stone's throw from an art museum and shopping streets -- was reopened by authorities in recent weeks.

Putting on a wetsuit and taking a board out of its bag after a day's work, Moritz, 43, said he's a regular at the surf spot on an arm of the Isar river.

"It's amazing. A wave right in the city center is something very special," he said. "I missed it during the closure."

Nearby, surfers performed tricks with virtuosity on the powerful wave, formed by the presence of rocks on the riverbed near a bridge.

"It's completely different from the ocean," said Moritz.

"Even if you know how to surf very well in the sea, you don't necessarily know how to do it here where the water comes from the front and not from behind."

Another surfer, Irina, 34, said she tries to come three times a week, "before work, because it gives you energy".

She finds "the power of the wave is good" and said she feels safe at this unique spot, even if "there are rocks at the bottom and you have to be a little careful when you fall".

A German surfer lost her life during a night session in April after being trapped underwater for nearly 30 minutes, her leash caught on an unidentified object.

Friends and emergency services rushed to help her, but she died a week after her accident.

An investigation found no safety breaches on the part of the city or state, which had always warned surfers to attempt the challenge "at their own risk".

New guidelines have, however, been issued: night surfing is banned between 10:00 pm and 5:30 am, and the minimum age for braving the wave is 14.

Surfers must also use a system that allows their leash to be detached in case of emergency.

These rules are "largely reasonable", said Franz Fasel, head of the local surfers' association IGSM, who said between 3,000 and 5,000 local surfers use the Eisbach site.

"Surfing is simply part of the lifestyle in Munich," he said. "Not just for the surfers themselves, but also for the city's image."

It was not always this way. In the past, the Eisbach wave was entirely natural and surfable only occasionally, for example, when gravel accumulated in the riverbed.

Surfers took matters into their own hands in the 1980s, installing a river crossing and adding objects to improve the wave, not all well received by the authorities.

The site is now promoted by the tourist office as one of Munich's top attractions.

Bavaria's state premier Markus Soeder proudly declared during a recent visit that "Munich is a surfer's paradise" and Bavaria "a bit like the California of Germany".