On May 8, 2003, in the early afternoon, I was walking along the path in the South side of Central Park. Off in the distance I noticed a figure, in red, who would wave her hand in the air and a pigeon would drop out of the sky, onto her hand. This happened several times and it seemed to be the same bird each time.
She stopped, I was to far away to get a picture, but she started walking towards me. I continued walking, towards her and when we were about 10 feet apart I smiled and said “Hi, I would have loved to get a picture of you with the pigeon, from a distance it looked real interesting”. I was dressed somewhat casual with a camera, my Pentax MZ-S, enlarged with a battery grip, and wearing a hat. In other words, I looked rather harmless and the camera indicated that I was a somewhat serious photographer.
She stopped, and said that I sounded like a New Yorker, which, if you ever hear me talk, is undeniable, and that I did not seem like a nut. She felt that an out-of-towner would think her to be crazy.
She used to work near the Park and every day, at lunch time, she would come into the Park and feed the pigeons. Some how she and this particular bird developed a relationship and the bird would always drop out of the sky and land on her hand to be fed. She had changed jobs and had not been in the Park for several weeks and came back today, to see if the bird was still around and if it would recognize her. As I describer above, the magic still worked.
I asked her how she did it and she said, “Watch”. She held out her hand, with some food in it, and made a noise. I was ready and ‘woosh’ the bird was there. The bird stayed for several photographs and then left. I gave her one of my cards and she contacted me via email following which I sent her several prints.
We’ll probably never meet again but it was a great New York moment and a wonderful photo op.
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{K:102014} 12/30/2004
