A couple of years ago, there was a very charming and somewhat wistful film called “The Wild Parrots Of Telegraph Hill” that documented the flock of feral parrots that live in that section of San Francisco and Mark Bittner, the man who had devoted his energy, time, and effort to feeding and caring for the birds. I watched it when it aired on PBS in 2007 and recommend it if you have the chance to see it (some Googling leads me to believe that it is not viewable in its entirety on the web, but is readily available from movie rental services).
Similarly, there’s been some attention given to the flocks of feral parrots living in the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens (though no movie, yet), and apparently there are flocks of escaped and feral parrots in Chicago and other American cities as well.
Now London joins the list of major cities with established populations of parrots. Unlike the American cities, though, the Brits are taking a tougher stance on the spread of the birds, since the number of birds seems to be exploding and parrots are popping up all over the English countryside. The British government made plans earlier this year to start culling the birds, which drew a lot of criticism from the very animal-friendly public. The birds are a protected species, but farmers are now allowed to trap and/or humanely destroy the birds and their eggs in areas where the birds threaten local fruit crops.
Here in Boston, there’s not much to speak of in terms of feral tropical birds, but we’ve already got our hands full with the Canada geese and the wild turkeys lurking everywhere.
P.S. The Monty Python reference in the title reminds me that I would be a bad blogger indeed not to mention that today, October 5, is the 40th anniversary of the premiere of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.
