For Tony “the Terminator” Fountain and Michael Scott, pigeons are a lifelong passion. The two are part of a waning and secretive community of Brooklyn pigeon flyers who breed, train and fly scores of birds from rooftop coops.
Pigeon flying has a long history in New York, with early 20th century origins in working-class immigrant communities. Flocks of trained pigeons have been a feature of the skyline ever since. Tony learned about pigeons from a neighbor who went by the moniker “Dr. Pigeon” when he was eight years old. Michael learned at two. But today, flyers worry that fewer and fewer youngsters are getting into ‘the bird game,’ as Tony calls it. The Brooklyn he grew up in has changed, its working-class communities where pigeon flying historically thrived chipped away by gentrification.
Flyers still in the bird game, like Michael and Tony, describe it as a hobby, an addiction, a joy and a pain. “Lots of pigeon guys, they go overboard,” says Tony. It can be exhausting to exercise, feed, medicate, and clean up after the more than one hundred birds he keeps. But it’s worth it, he says, for the peace that comes with watching the birds circle overhead, fly to other neighborhoods and maybe coax a few deserters away from rival flocks.
These photos are a glimpse into early spring at two Brooklyn pigeon flyers’ coops—as chicks are born, birds stretch their wings after a winter locked away, and their keepers spend hours up above the city, caring for their birds and relaxing under the sun. It’s a look at an endangered practice, but also at a connection between humans and animals, and the fierce pride that flyers take in their pigeons, creatures often reviled as urban pests.