It’s tweet music.
Finch-singing contests like the ones outlined in last week’s federal bust of an international avian smuggler are a hopping happening in city parks — as The Post witnessed Sunday morning in Queens.
About 60 men, mostly Guyanese immigrants, flocked to Phil Rizzuto Park in Richmond Hill with handmade wooden cages holding their prized seed finches, repeating a ritual carried out every warm-weather weekend for decades.
Competitors plant a pair of large poles in the ground, suspend one cage from each at eye-level, then let the caged birds sing.
“Normally the way it works is, you put the birds face-to-face, and whichever bird does 50 chirps first is the winner,” said one old-timer, who claimed to have been among those who started the contests 30 years ago.
But the men mostly wing the songbird showdowns — which bear little resemblance to the seedy underworld described in the criminal case against Francis Gurahoo, a Connecticut man busted last Sunday for allegedly smuggling 34 live finches inside plastic hair curlers aboard a Guyana-to-JFK flight.
Where federal officials described gambling competitions in which the most golden-voiced finch can earn a reputation making it worth more than $5,000, the loftiest stakes at Sunday’s lazy meet-up were who had to buy the next round of breakfast from the bodega.
“We weren’t really going by the rules. We weren’t counting the chirping, just listening by ear,” said the veteran talon-t agent, who asked not to be named. “Everyone agreed my bird did more chirps than his, so mine won.”
Because his finch hit 50 chirps first — in just about two minutes, average for these birds — the victorious owner was treated to coffee and a buttered roll, which he said is as weighty as the wagers get.
“I’ve heard of times where people gambled, but that’s not what’s supposed to happen,” said the insider. “People who gamble, we tell them to leave. Here it’s just gentleman’s bets, coffees and rolls.”
But the US Customs and Border Protection, which busted 39-year-old Gurahoo when he was pulled aside for a customs examination, expressed skepticism at the crew’s insistence that they’re humble hobbyists.
“Even when they’re caught with finches in the bag or on their person they’ll deny [it],” said agency spokesman Anthony Bucci. “So that the people in the Guyanese community would say that they don’t gamble on it — that it’s strictly a hobby — I have a hard time believing that.”
But locals at Phil Rizzuto Park insisted that all their birds are locally bought — and that they only pay $300 to $1,000, not the $3,000 that Gurahoo allegedly hoped to flip the flappers for.
“Come on, I work for $600 a week,” said one man, Tony, who doesn’t own any birds but likes to take in the contests. “I’ve got a wife and children and a mortgage and I’m going to pay $3,000 for a bird? Come on.”
Additional reporting by Aaron Feis