A portrait of Erislandy with painted feathers
Erislandy shows me how he paints his pigeons. The dye process doesn't hurt or injure the birds.
Erislandy sits inside a pigeon coop, where many of his birds live.
A pigeon racer synchronizes his vintage clock and preps for the messenger pigeon race.
Erislandy made rings using my picture and attached them to three of his pigeons.
All the competing pigeons are placed in metal crates, loaded onto a truck bed, taken to different cities, and then released at the same time to start this race.
Erislandy cleans out the pigeon food with water and lays it out on his roof to dry out.
Messenger pigeons typically share bigger pigeon coops, allowing them to fly around the tight spaces.
To avoid cheating, small clocks are attached to the pigeons and taken off when they return home. Their times are then jotted down.
Erislandy displays a handful of his dyed pigeons. He dyes the pigeons certain colors to represent particular regions, for one of the competitions, but he often paints them simply to raise the price or make them look more beautiful.
There are about five female pigeon racers that compete in Havana. Ines is one of them, and both she and her husband run the Federación Colombófila de Cuba that hosts the messenger pigeon races. Here, Ines shows me an egg from one of her pigeons.
“El maestro” is Erislandy’s mentor who taught him everything about pigeon racing and breeding. I photographed his pigeon two years ago and made him a copy. He had the picture framed himself.
A hatched egg sits inside Erislandy's pigeon coop.
Erislandy has about seven students who he teaches about pigeons. He often gives them small pigeons, so they can learn how to raise the birds on their own.
Erislandy shows off one of his dyed pigeons during sunset.