Hundreds of homing pigeons disappear in Wales on same day thousands vanish across UK
More than 1,000 homing pigeons have disappeared during a south Wales race - on the same day thousands more went missing across the UK.
Up to 250,000 birds were released in some 50 races all across Britain on Saturday 19 June, but only a small number of them made it back.
'Freak weather' has been blamed for their disappearance.
Some have been spotted as far away as Holland and Majorca, prompting some to dub the date "the worst day in pigeon racing history".
The mystery was first highlighted when thousands of the birds failed to arrive in north east England from Peterborough on what should have been a three hour flight.
The race controller for the South West Wales Federation of pigeon fanciers, said a huge number of the birds he and his friends had lovingly reared from chicks also vanished.
Dene Simpson explained: "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.
"But, of the 1,400 that went out, only about 200 to 300 made it home. And when we looked on social media later on we saw that lots of other federations around the UK had experienced something similar."
Dene said there had been no warning signs when he decided when and where the birds would be released, liaising with other federations and checking the weather situation.
"The forecast had been overcast in the morning but with good visibility - by the afternoon there were clear blue skies back home in Swansea," he said.
"Which is why I think something invisible to the naked eye occurred, something that messed with the birds' internal Sat Nav and caused them to veer off course drastically."
He explained that homing pigeons navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field as a guide, but a freak occurrence such as solar storm could distort their sense of direction.
"There was definitely something strange going on that day because there were hardly any wild birds in the sky at all beforehand, it was just dead up there.
"Personally, I've not ruled out a series of mini tornadoes being to blame."
Dene said that the pigeon of another member of his federation, which covers areas including Port Talbot, Pontardawe and Llanelli, has since been spotted in the Netherlands - identified by the tag around its leg.
"It's upsetting for the boys because they've reared these birds by hand, really looked after them.
"While money is the last thing on anyone's mind at a time like this, pigeon fancying can be an expensive hobby. Losing this many birds will have cost a fortune."
However, he added that it wasn't the first time an event like this had take place.
"Some of our older members can recall an identical unexplained happening from about 60 years ago, but that was way before my time."