Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Forget the war drums for a moment. Forget the treachery of icy sidewalks. Imagine seeing one of these guys at your bird feeder. Mark Twain said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” but that was a century before a flock of wild parrots took up residence on Telegraph Hill. Now there is a book and a documentary film telling the parrot story. An NPR piece summarizes it, and YouTube has a clip of the movie trailer.

2 comments:

JoAnn said...

The exotic colours of the wild parrots and their bobbing motions, keeping time to Bittner's guitar strumming, did indeed make me forget the grey skies and cold winds in Ontario this morning.

A 2008 trip to SF must include a visit to Telegraph Hill.

Mark Willis said...

There's a famous staircase descending Telegraph Hill to the bay. The parrots hang out somewhere along there. They seem to have PR agents now, so it may be hard to get a glimpse. The view of SF Bay, though, is always glorious.