Our club members live throughout the Catskill Mountain Park and Hudson Valley. We are a group of individuals that love racing pigeons. We currently have 13 members that race. Though a small club we have tremendous competition amongst all us friends. Meet the guys!
Kyle Warren—
I have been obsessed with pigeons since I could barely walk. My earliest memories are stacking rocks up in front of my grandfather’s pigeon coop door to reach the lock (that was there to keep me out). I use to go in the coop, take all valuable breeders outside and toss them into the sky one at a time then I’d steal all the eggs, put them in a shoe box and hide them in my dresser drawer. Needless to say my grandfather didn’t feel that he had a featherhead buddy, grandson for life at that time…. just a little pain in the ass that he couldn’t keep out of his pigeon coop that lived right next door.
During my youth, I had lots going on with sports and dogs but I always gravitated back to the birds. They always found there way back to me. They have always been my sanctuary. Flying high, dipping and diving, following me around in the gardens. They have always been my wings. From birth to thirteen years old I mostly just hung out at the coop with my grandfather. He taught me how to feed the race birds, keep them healthy, what strong pigeons feel like and the joy that these little balls of feathers can bring. When you are a kid, colors get you really excited. Every time we went to a pigeon auction, I wanted my grandfather to buy me a silver bird. Thankfully for him a good friend of his that use to fly birds with us had bought a silver cock bird from a very good flyer. This bird lived to be seventeen years old and bred fifteen winners! To no surprise….. I have many of that bloodline today.
As a teenager I would do my homework in the loft to tame the birds and could tell you every bird’s band number and their entire family tree for four to five generations back just by looking at them from across the room. When I was twenty years old and moved away from home, it was time that I got my own coop. Levi Loft was created. It took me two years to get going but in 2002 I flew on my own for the first time in my life. I even beat my grandfather in six out of the ten races we flew but he stuck it to me by beating me in a race where he got first and I got second on a 250 mile race, where I lost by a single second! To this day the joke is I lost the race in the yard.
The passion I have for my birds is at the core of who I am. I love the genetics, the breeding, the conditioning, the motivating and most of all their ability to be an unbelievable 10 – 16 ounce athlete that can fly hundreds of miles in a day without any difficultly. Its a breathtaking sight when one of your birds zips by overhead and cuts the air like a knife as it goes into a power dive down onto it’s home.
I’m 29 years old, always had racing pigeons, always will have them and will do everything I can to promote this sport in my area. Currently I’m the race secretary for the Northern Catskill Pigeon Club and fly under the name Levi Loft.
You can also learn more about me on my website: www.kylewarrendogs.com
Joe Costa—
I grew up in Yonkers and at the age of ten I received a pair of young birds from a friend. My father built me a coop with a screen box on it. He had a friend who taught me how to care for the birds. At eighteen years old, I enlisted in the Army and obviously had to part with the birds during that time but started up as soon as I returned from my service.
In 1962, I got married and place my birds at a friends house. In 1974, I jumped back into racing the birds with the Stamford Pigeon Club and flew there for ten years. My life took me away from the birds from 1984 to 1999. My buddies that I gave my birds to in the 80s, raised me some youngsters out of my old bloodlines in 1999. I have been racing here with the Northern Catskill Pigeon Club from 1999 to the present. Currently the club’s vice-president and fly under the name Ranch Loft.
Peter Miller—
I was born in 1938, and I was 15 when I first got my own coop. I had several different breeds that flew but didn’t race. The pigeons were kept on the roof of our apartment in Brooklyn. In 1958 I got married, and moved upstate to Glenford, New York several years later. A neighbor of ours had pigeons, and I, becoming more and more interested in the sport, joined the Pigeon Club in Kingston New York. I raced with them for ten years before joining the Northern Catskill Pigeon Club. I’ve been racing with them ever since.
What never ceases to amaze me is the pigeons determination to come home, and I love watching them fly in every race day. You always have to remember; the more effort put into the pigeons, the better they fly. Currently I’m the president of the Northern Catskill Pigeon Club and fly under the name Millertime Loft.
Ed Dunne—
In 1961 at 12 years old I received two pairs of pigeons from my father and uncle. At that time we lived in Rhinebeck, NY, where they built me a housing space for them in the garage.
Later on my cousin and I had a small loft in the backyard in Poughkeepsie. When we moved to Staatsburg, NY I had a larger loft and used to take the birds in a box on my bike up the road a few miles to let them go and thought that was great.
I first started to race birds when I bought a house in Tivoli, NY. From that point forward, the only time that I didn’t have pigeons was when I went back in the Navy.
After 9/11, I was called back for active duty and my wife, Marie, raced the birds for the remainder of the season with the help of her daughter. This was back when we had the house in Hudson, NY.
Marie paired them up for the following year’s breeding season so I would have a young bird team to race in the fall when I was released from active duty. Now we’re racing out of our loft in Shady, NY. I fly under the name: Crabapple Loft.
Check out my website at: www.crabappleloft.com
Tom Molle—
I acquired my first pigeon at 5 years of age when I was with my grandfather, Joe Giangrande, in the Bronx, NY, and they caught a red baldy at a cement plant there and I took it home and built my first coop. My uncles, Jimmy and Gene Giangrande, both had pigeons in Mount Vernon, NY, and I soon followed suit with his pigeon coop on Bond Street. All through elementary school (Hamilton) and junior high school (Nichols) in Mount Vernon, NY, Tom had tiplets and flights, and other fancy birds. At 13 years of age my family moved to Eastchester, NY where I continued his pigeon hobby along with my brother Pat and my cousin Vinny Porpora. Over the years I continued to fly fancy birds with Pat and Vinny flying homers known as “Pat and Vin.” My other cousin, Joe Giangrande, was flying homers in Yorktown Heights, NY with Jackie Devito, known as Jack and Joe Loft of CPY. I have been into racing homers for only the past 3 years after over 50 years of fancy birds. My brother and cousins continue to assist me in breeding, training, health matters, etc. Hence the name “Three Cousins Loft.” My wife Laura and daughter Ashley help with training the birds, cleaning the coop, clocking the birds, and all other phases of management. My cousin Joe Giangrande takes the birds out several days a week for training. They all look forward to seeing the birds come home from the races, regardless of their places, and enjoy being at the club with other members. On any race Saturday, there are between 5 – 10 people at the Three Cousins Loft in Gilboa, NY to see the birds return, have their weekly coffee, cake, etc. My best friend from my school years whom he still sees and speaks with every day, Lou DiRubba, is also at the loft on race days working the droppers and using his keen eye to see the birds in the sky before anyone else does. My family and I welcome anyone to the Three Cousins Loft in Gilboa, NY for coffee, etc. I am retired so I am home most of the time. Just stop by and say, “hello” anytime!
Richie Miskovsky—
I fly under “Chris-Nick Loft.” I’m married with two daughters and five grandchildren. Pigeons have always been apart of my life, as my dad had birds and flew them. I first started racing in 1956 and have flown in several different clubs over the years due to several moves throughout my life. In 2001, I moved to the Catskills and in 2010 became a member of the Northern Catskill Pigeon Club. I look forward to flying many years to come.
Other members below, yet to write bios.
Walter Sidga
Charlie Morgan
Jim Gaffney
Tom Sit
Phil Massaro
Fred Fietcher
