Up to 250 000 birds were released in some 50 races all across Britain on Saturday, June 19, but only 10% managed to return in the expected time. Thousands are still missing, and some have subsequently been spotted as far away as Holland and Majorca. According to an article on metro.co.uk, the disappearances were first highlighted in reports about a race from Peterborough to the North East, in which more than half of the 9 000 pigeons taking part went AWOL.

Dene Simpson, race controller for the South West Wales Federation of pigeon fanciers, said the same happened to him and his friends.  A huge number of the birds they’d lovingly reared from chicks suddenly disappeared without a trace.  Dene, 38, from Swansea, said: ‘We’d let ours go from Swindon at midday on the same Saturday – that’s a 92 mile journey with the wind behind them, so it shouldn’t have taken that long."

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