Waking up to greet the day, Liz Beukema reaches for the alarm every morning at 4:20 a.m. She crates her pigeons and loads them in the truck. Beukema has had the same routine for more than a decade, and jokes that might be why pigeon racing is a low participation sport.
Every morning, Beukema drives her pigeons a predetermined distance and releases them about half an hour after sunup. She’s usually not alone, as her teenage son first introduced her to the sport. A sport where its rare for there to be a mom and son pigeon racing team that competes against each other.
Garrett Beukema got his start after someone gifted him racing pigeons. They started with 10 and now they have 200. For the Beukemas, life on their New Richmond, Wisconsin farm would never be the same. Garret Beukema was 10 years old when he started racing. He couldn’t drive them down to the road to train. Liz Beukema says she was just along for the ride. She did that for two years before she got her own racing team. She remembers trying to be very scientific about the practice. Her son took a more laid back approach. He would win every week.
Training takes a lot of time and patience. They start out slow, going a half a mile, then two miles, then five miles and just letting the birds navigate their way home. On this day, they flew 90 miles on a training run. Sometimes the races cover more than 400 miles. The bird home in the fastest time wins.
Scientists aren’t quite certain how the pigeons navigate. Some say they use the sun. Some say the follow geographic landmarks like rivers, forests and hills. Garrett Beukema describes it as a leap of faith. You’re just releasing them up in the sky and praying that they come back.
Through the years the birds have got better, the bond between mom and son grew stronger and the need for Garrett Beukema to spread his wings took flight. His mom says the pair have spent a lot of invaluable time together with these birds over the years. But now the son is heading off to school, and leaving mom to fly solo.