How do you race a pigeon? How do you know who wins? And how do the pigeons know where to fly?

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 5 minutes 33 seconds 5 m Paul Ryan, Wagga Wagga Racing Pigeon Club member explaining pigeon racing ( Fiona Pepper ) Download 2.5 MB

Paul Ryan is a member of the Wagga Wagga Racing Pigeon Club in southern New South Wales.

He said that pigeons naturally want to race because they want to get back to their home loft.

A pigeon sitting on a perch ( ABC Rural: Fiona Pepper )

"What we do is we have a club room in town, so say on a Friday night we'll take our birds that we want to race to the club room," he said.

"Each bird has a got an electronic ring on it...we scan each bird into the clock.

"Then that night they stay at the club room, the next day they'll go to the race point, which is say 100 kilometres away.

"Those birds have been 'basketed' all night, so naturally they're looking for a feed and with the feed motivation, plus the will to get back to their mate, or back to their own perch, they'll race home as quick as they can."

Paul Ryan's pigeons feeding ( ABC Rural: Fiona Pepper )

Mr Ryan's racing secret is to let romance develop between his birds.

He said once they've established a mate, it gives the birds an incentive to fly faster.

"It makes them want to come home quicker."