For Pet's Sake Column

I’m going to go out on a limb here and admit something to you……I’m a tree hugger and proud of it. Trees, after all, provide beauty, oxygen, shade, and sanctuary to many of nature’s creatures. There is something magical about the sound of the breeze as it gently rustles through the tree branches. As I listen, the leaves begin to dance and sing a meditative melody. My mind becomes calm, contemplative.

But then something happens to ruffle my feathers.

Last week, I learned that a flock of wild parrots are in jeopardy of losing their home – a grove of giant cypress trees on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. While the trees have remained rooted in anonymity until now, their feathered inhabitants have become famous, thanks to Mark Bittner, a once homeless man turned author and animal advocate.

Mark was penniless and deeply depressed when he moved to San Francisco in the early 1990s to “find himself.” He took a caretaking position in an old house on the Bay’s famed Telegraph Hill and began a daily ritual of meditating and writing. It was during his hermit-like existence that he discovered his destiny in the trees right outside his window…..a flock of wild parrots.

Just how these warm-blooded immigrants from South America came to be living in the cool, foggy region of Northern California remains a mystery but Mark, a modern-day St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the animals for which San Francisco is named, began studying, caring for, and feeding the flock in earnest. He gave them all names like Mingus, Connor, Picasso, Sophie, Olive, Pushkin, and Tupelo and they became his fascination, his friends, his very reason for getting out of bed in the morning. He also began keeping a detailed journal about the colorful conures’ likes and dislikes, their romantic hookups and breakups, and their illnesses and deaths.

After living for years on a wing and a prayer, Mark became a best-selling author in 2004 after the publication of his first book, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story…With Wings and the release of an award-winning documentary of the same name.

Mark eventually married Judy Irving, the film’s producer and director, and the couple continues to live on Telegraph Hill, where Mark writes and still cares for his feathered friends. He has also taken up a new cause: saving the cypress trees – the Parrots’ Hilton, if you will – from being cut down. Three of the trees have already been felled by a crew’s chainsaw, but there is hope for the two that remain. San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty has proposed legislation that will not only provide for the pruning and maintenance of the two surviving trees, but has mandated the planting of up to six new parrot-friendly trees, as well as provide legal protection for the property owner should the dying trees fall before being replaced.

In an email message to me this week Mark wrote, “I’m grateful for the efforts being made on behalf of my friends, the parrots, but I hope there will come a time when something like this is unremarkable. The natural world can’t vote or own property. We humans have to be the ones to make sure it has room to thrive.”

Until that day comes, take time to quiet your mind and listen to the trees as they sway in the breeze. The soothing sound is a gentle reminder that we are but a part of something bigger, something far greater than us and it goes by the name of Mother Nature.

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Please urge the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to vote in favor of protecting the wild parrot habitat by signing an online petition at www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/557131157

Let Karen know your views on trees huggers and parrots by sending a message to her at karenleestevens@cox.net.