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I was walking my dog, Morton, along Sansome Street, near Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill, when I heard a raucous of birds that sounded to me to be parrots (the small variety). I am thinking to myself that someone had some for pets on The Hill and I am hearing their calls echoing off the surrounding office buildings. Suddenly, a flock of the birds took off just above my head. I stopped dead in my tracks, head tipped back and staring in disbelief. Of course, Morton is staring at me and wondering why I have stopped.

This young man walks past me and I asked him if I had really just seen parrots. He laughed and confirmed that was indeed what I was seeing. Seems these birds have been living on Telegraph Hill for years. He informed me that there was even a documentary movie about them called "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill". He could not tell me much more than that and I was surprised that this was the first I have ever heard of the parrots.

Anyhow, I came home and Goggled the birds. Sure enough, an entire website is presently being built by a man named Mark Bittner who played a major role in the documentary for his dealing with the birds over the years beginning in October of 1993 to September of 1999. He had been journaling about the birds and had even been feeding them.

The wild parrots are cherry-headed or red-cheeked conures. Their bodies are green with the bright red on their heads and on the under wings and sport long pointed tails. They originally came from South America and were imported here to be sold as pets ($100 per bird) before it became restricted and illegal to import wild birds of any kind into the US.

These wild parrots absolutely despised captivity, were noisy and bit. Many were released by their owners when they could no longer tolerate the belligerent birds. Other conures escaped from their captivity. There is approximately a two hundred plus colony of these birds currently residing on Telegraph Hill.

I also found out that there is another, though smaller, colony of conures living wild in the city of San Francisco in the Dolores Park area. These are yellow-chevroned or white-winged conures. Their bodies are a pale green with bright yellow chevrons on the wings, or a darker green with white chevrons.

Still, the Telegraph Hill parrots are more renowned and have struck up controversy in June of 2007 about tourists and locals feeding these wild birds. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to ban the feeding of the parrots. This law was passed to not only protect the parrots from being trapped and absconded, but also to protect the public who were feeding them. A parrot's bite is hard and can break the skin. There is also the possibility of passing on disease (Parrot or Bird Fever) to children, the elderly and those with a compromised immune system. What would happen to the flock if someone was injured or made ill by these magnificent birds? It would be a sad day should the parrots have to be eliminated because people couldn't leave Nature alone.

Learn more about this author, Dorothy Baum.
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