Bird Market
Sunday mornings around 9 o'clock, if you wander down to the riverfront walk near the bridge, four blocks from my apartment, you will find the bird market.
People gather here to show and buy birds and to buy supplies, but I'm sure they are also exchanging the latest gossip.
It's not a large market. Not many of the people I know come to it even though they can tell you about it. But, then, the few people I know don't keep birds.
The people who do keep birds hang their cages during the day on their balconies, under their eaves or in tree branches outside their front doors. When I'm walking I often hear the birds singing and then, following the song, spot them in their cages. I've also seen birdkeepers "exercising," or it might be "airing," their birds...they carry the covered cages as they walk on the wall or toward the park. Or they ride their bikes with the covered cage hanging from the handlebars. Maybe they are just taking their birds to visit friends but it always looks like they are "walking" them, much as people walk their dogs.
The people who own birds are most often men and most of them older men. Birds seem to be a pastime of grandpas. A cigarette vendor on our street often allows his grandchild to feed and talk with his caged bird. This is how they pass the time as he waits for customers to stop at his cigarette case. The majority of the people at the bird market are men.

People who keep birds are interested in quality birdfeed, stylish cages, and paraphenalia for cages - all of which you can find at the market. I guess most hobbies lead to an interest in supplies. You see the keepers scrutinizing and quizzing as the vendors attempt to assuage their doubts.
But some of the keepers and their friends just sit and "talk story." The birds are their scenery.