Telegraph Hill's Wild Parrots and the Hidden Garden on the Filbert Steps

If you hear loud squawking from the treetops on the east side of Telegraph Hill, it's probably the wild parrots. They're a free-flying flock of mostly cherry-headed conures, green birds with red heads, and they've become one of San Francisco's best-loved oddities.

Where they came from

Cherry-headed conures are native to southwestern Ecuador and a corner of northwestern Peru, according to Mark Bittner, who has worked with the flock since 1993 and wrote about it for FoundSF. Bittner writes that wild-caught cherry heads were once cheap and common in pet stores, before legal imports of wild birds into the U.S. were severely restricted in 1993, and that many escaped or were set free. KQED says the San Francisco birds most likely escaped or were released by pet owners, rather than coming from the often-told story of a burning Pasadena pet store.

Bittner writes that some of the birds found each other on the north waterfront and began breeding in 1989. KQED says a mitred conure later joined and bred with the cherry heads, so the flock now includes hybrids. The birds range from the Ferry Building south to Brisbane and Sunnyvale. Bittner told KQED the name "Telegraph Hill" is a misnomer.

The garden on the steps

A good place to look and listen is the Grace Marchant Garden along the Filbert Steps on the hill's eastern slope. FoundSF recounts that Marchant moved to Napier Lane and Filbert Street in 1949, when the steps ran through an informal dump. She cleaned up the slope herself (the trash fire reportedly burned for three days) and spent the next few decades making a public garden. In 1989, when a cottage owner got a permit to build on part of it, neighbors founded Friends of the Garden and the Trust for Public Land bought the property and resold it with deed restrictions protecting the garden. The Friends now maintain it. FoundSF notes that most visitors to the steps get a visit from the noisy flock at some point.

Tips

Climb the Filbert Steps from Sansome Street and take a detour along wooden Napier Lane. Listen before you look: the parrots are usually heard first. Don't feed them, and remember the gardens border private homes.

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