It was a long, long time ago that I fell in love with pigeons. when I was 4 years old, living in Yugoslavia, a friend
of the family gave me a pair of pigeons. That memory is still vivid in my mind. I can still remember
how they felt in my hand and I can even remember what they smelled like. See Picture.
From that time on I have always had pigeons. At first I didn't know what kind they were - they were just
pigeons. Later on, as a teenager, I started to fly Serbian High Flyers. I did this for a period of time,
then later on I heard about Tipplers and that cought my attention.
As time passed I became aquainted with Tippler people. Gradually, my loft began to have more and more Tipplers and less and less Serbian High Flyers. It soon became apparent to me that I was having more success with the Tipplers than the other breeds.
At about that time me and some of my friends began to form a Tippler club in my home town of Zemun, a suburb of Belgrad. We also began to import some quality birds from England. In the early 70's, we had already imported 5 pairs from John Cullen, in England. Those birds were 5 cocks and 2 hens from the Gordon Hughs strain and 3 hens raised by John Cullen. At that time we didn't know enough about Tipplers to know how to care for or fly them. John Cullen sent us a long, five page letter along with the pigeons with instructions for raising and handling Tipplers. That letter proved to be invaluable to us and got us started on the right track with our tipplers. Here is his Letter in Adobe Reader format.
At first we didn't realize the quality of the birds we had because we didn't know very much about Tipplers. But, as time passed, we began to realize what a good quality of birds we really had. Even today my friends in my hometown of Zemun, are flying offspring from those birds and to my knowledge have achieved over 18 hours in competition.
When I flew my birds in Zemun, I successfuly competed in our club events, which had about 25 competing members and was affiliated with YUTS. Click here to see some of the results..
In 1992, I moved to America. But, before I left Zemun, I visited my friends to say goodbye and to tell them that I was leaving for America. One of them, Sava Maksimovic, gave me a 1989 NTU year book with addresses of tippler people in America, so that I could make contact with Tippler people in this country. He knew I dreamed about having pigeons and that I would want to get started again in America.
In this book I found Rex Leon, and I contacted him and he really helped me a lot. He gave me some excellent birds that he got from the P. Field, strain. I was happy with those birds but later on he called me and said that Pascal Norohna had some birds from Ireland (Harry Shannon) and so I got 3 pairs from him. All of the breeders with an NTU designation on my breeders page are these birds. I don't have any further information about these NTU birds, but they have given me excellent results with their offspring, which you can see in my flyers page. I am very happy with those birds and I give thanks to Rex Leon, and also to Pascal Noronha, for bringing these birds to this country.
I started competing in this country in 1999. Some results of my FTS competition.
I also give thanks to Bob Cleveland, who helped me keep track of my pigeons by writting a computer program for me that I use to keep my pigeon records with. You can get a free copy of this program by clicking on the "FREE Pigeon Record Program" link on the home page.
Also, I am appriciative of the friendships I have made with members of the FTS Tippler Club, that I remain in contact with by telephone.