Pigeons - with their penchant for cooing, darting, eating garbage, and soiling cars and innocent passersby-may comprise the biggest bird population in the City, but they aren't the only avian species around. The most famous are the wild parrots, which have been extensively documented by local birder Mark Bittner on his website and in his recently published book The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. (A handy tip: The red-headed parrots are the Telegraph Hill mob; the other flock, which are mostly green with a white patch on the wing, hang out around Dolores Park.)
A step up on the food chain are the peregrine falcons, which garnered a great deal of attention this spring when they nested in the PG&E headquarters at Beale and Mission. The peregrines can still be spotted around town, maybe even in your own backyard, or on Mission Street, where they're joined by a red-tailed hawk that likes to perch on the New Mission theater sign before swooping down to snatch a pigeon out of midair.
While the raptors may seem out of their element flying over the city streets, even more unexpected are the urban chickens. According to the Health Code, you can keep up to four chickens or small game birds in your private residence. San Francisco Bay Guardian columnist Dan Leone raises chickens in the Mission, and urban rancher Shawn Hannon has 'em in the Excelsior.
And who can forget Amelia, the flying chicken who was
