WATCH: New York hosts inaugural Pigeon Fest
New Yorkers love pigeons? Yes, telling from the City's first-ever Pigeon Fest and dress-up competition.
CapeTalk's Clarence Ford speaks to Barbara Friedman about trending online stories.
Listen below:
Residents of the Big Apple with a passion for pigeons came out in droves recently for the event at the High Line, which famously unveiled a 16-foot-pigeon statue last year.
The festival included games, merch, and a 'Pigeon Impersonation Pageant', promising plenty of creativity, humour, and pigeon pride.
New York is home to about nine million pigeons.
Hosted by legendary costume designer and New York City icon Machine Dazzle, contestants were judged on plumage (costume), strut, and sound by a panel of experts.
In the contest, seven pigeon enthusiasts competed for the title, but Miriam Abrahams, a British artist who has lived in New York City for 11 years, won first place, taking the title and gold crown.
"It was so New York and just incredible... one of the funniest things was that people were throwing bread at them... the pictures were the absolute delight of this. Only in New York would people be so invested..."
- Barbara Friedman
Watch some snippets of the competition below:
Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the full conversation.