Cherry-headed conures are shown in Berkeley, Calif. Wild parrots have become a common sight in San Francisco. Photo: AP SAN FRANCISCO — The wild parrots that call San Francisco home have become a given of city life, squawking their way to their favorite spots, delighting tourists.
The famous flock is now about 300 strong, more than triple what it was 10 years ago.
But that, it turns out, is good and bad news for the birds.
A local bird rescue, which was founded to rescue abandoned pet cockatiels, is inundated with wild parrots who need care, from fledglings that crash and break a wing or leg to birds stricken by illness to those injured by predators or accident.
Just when the rescue group, Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue, is overwhelmed with birds of all species, including canaries, cocktails and amazons — many surrendered by owners grappling with hard times — it is also handling more and more members of the wild flock.
“As a flock, it’s healthy, it’s growing,” said Jennifer Ehrlichman, the rescue’s wild conure coordinator. “There has always been a percentage that falls ill or gets injured. The percentage hasn’t changed. There are just more birds.”
The rescue group, whose 100 members care for birds in their homes, has 225 birds of all kinds waiting to be adopted and has run out of volunteers who can take in wild parrots.
That puts the rescue in the midst of a bonafide wild parrot emergency.
Mickaboo, which has taken in 60 wild parrots since it gained non-profit status in 2003, has 18 wild parrots waiting to be adopted, the most ever at one time.
Ehrlichman, a fashion designer, is fostering five of the cherry-headed conures, in addition to the one parrot she adopted seven years ago.
“We’re getting more birds and losing more adoptive homes because of the recession,” Erlichman said.
The parrots, who tend to break up into small groups during the day, spreading their wings and chatter all over the city, have a fan base. They were immortalized in the 2005 documentary, “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,” based on the 2004 book of the same name by Mark Bittner, and are mentioned in guide books and monitored by tour groups.
How the birds, natives of South America, came to take up residence in San Francisco is a matter of speculation, even legend. Bittner, who devoted years to chronicling and caring for them, first noticed the parrots in 1989, when the flock numbered just 4 — a mated pair and their offspring. The adults wore quarantine bands, suggesting they had been released by, or escaped from, importers.
By 1994, Bittner and his neighbors on Telegraph Hill counted 26 parrots. By 1999, 50.
The flock has included cherry-headed conures, mitred conures with half-red, half-green heads, blue-crowned conures and mitred-cherry-head hybrids.