The two black finches whistled songs at each other in fluttering voices as a group of men crowded around their cages.
It was the first bird singing competition of the morning, and men on either side of the two cages counted the songs, each as fleeting as a haiku. The first finch to tweet 50 would be declared the winner.
For years, bird racing, as the sport is known, has been held in a park in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens on warm Sunday afternoons with scant attention from outsiders.
Yet the races have drawn increased scrutiny recently from law enforcement, as federal officials target illegal smuggling of finches from Guyana. Authorities also suspect the men place illegal bets on the birds.
The people who flock to the races, mostly Guyanese immigrant men, argue that it is simply a harmless cultural pastime.
'This is how we relax our minds,' said Rajendra 'Bush' Harinarian, who compared the sport to watching baseball for Americans. 'We hang out with our friends, with the birds.'
John Neal, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agent serving New York, said his agents investigate six to eight finch smuggling cases each year. Most of the birds are destined to compete in the races at Phil 'Scooter' Rizzuto Park, previously known as Smokey Oval Park, he said.
The illicit trade is fueled by the demand for males of species native to Guyana known as the lesser-seed finch or 'towa-towa,' Neal said. Racing enthusiasts consider them the best singers, he said.
Though the smuggled birds sometimes die before arrival, the males that survive can sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars in the U.S. market.
'Money is traded hands, wagers are placed and the birds can be very valuable,' Neal said.
But Harinarian _ who said he breeds the birds in America _ denied that the men at the park gamble on the races. 'That's a rumor,' he said.
There were no visible signs of gambling during two recent visits to the park.
The men arrive at the park in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes on bike or on foot, covered bird cages in hand. The birds are said to sing best in the early hours between about 5 a.m. and 10 a.m.
The adult birds are black except for bronze patches on their chests.
A race begins after two cages are hung next to each other on a stake. A crowd gathers, and men are chosen to count the songs. The finches, often trained using audio recordings to sing short and uniform songs, are fiercely competitive. They sometimes fly from their perches to beat their wings against the cage's wooden bars.
Harry Dukhram walks to the park maybe twice a year to see the races.
'It's just something you get into,' he said. 'It's like horse racing.'
There are about 143,800 Guyanese living in New York City, mostly in Brooklyn and Queens, making them one of the largest foreign-born populations in the city. Richmond Hill is sometimes referred to as 'Little Guyana' and reflects the South American nation's mix of African, Asian and indigenous roots.
Cullen Hanks, a biologist who has studied the finch trade, said smuggling the birds is common. 'It's kind of a manly thing to have one of these small singing birds,' he said.
The birds have become scarce in some areas of Guyana because of extensive trapping, he said. Finches can be bought easily at open-air markets in Guyanese cities after being trucked in from the country's hinterlands.
Harinarian, who was born in Berbice, Guyana, said he is working to breed the birds legally in captivity.
'We can't get enough here to supply the market,' he said, adding that people smuggle the birds into the country because importation rules are too stringent and the required 30-day quarantine to make sure they are free of disease, too costly.
It currently costs $2.50 a day to quarantine a bird that weighs less than 250 grams, or just under 9 ounces, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Neal said the Fish & Wildlife Service wants people to import the birds legally, but to do so they would have to comply with both Guyanese and U.S. law.
'If somebody knocked on my door and wanted to sit down and have the rules explained to them so they could do this lawfully, it would be a fairly easy thing to do,' he said, adding that 'towa-towas' are not listed as endangered under international trade conventions on wildlife.
About three years ago, Customs and Border Patrol officers inspecting the luggage of a man who arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport from Guyana found 13 'towa-towa' finches hidden in hair curlers in a bag, along with about 50 pounds of grass seed, according to court papers.
Prosecutors charged the man, Terrence McLean, with violating both a Guyanese law that prohibits the export of wild birds and a U.S. law that bans importing wildlife.
In April, a judge threw out the case against McLean after deciding that it was unclear whether the birds were covered by the Guyanese law. McLean was fined $250 after pleading guilty to failing to properly declare the birds at the airport.
'Mr. McLean has had songbirds his whole life,' said Vincent Barredo, one of McLean's attorneys. 'They're more than just his hobby, they're his passion.'
Harinarian said he doesn't think the men are doing anything wrong and mean no harm to the finches. Often, a bird that can sing well is a man's most valuable belonging, he said.
'It's like a racehorse. It's a Kentucky Derby contender,' he said.
