Filbert Street Steps & Wild Parrots

Listen. Before you start climbing these roughly four hundred wooden steps through the hanging gardens of Telegraph Hill, stop and listen. If you're lucky, you'll hear them before you see them — a raucous, screeching flock of bright red and green parrots wheeling overhead. Welcome to one of the strangest wildlife stories in San Francisco.

They're cherry-headed conures, originally from Peru and Ecuador, and there are roughly three hundred of them living wild on Telegraph Hill. Nobody's entirely sure how the colony started, but the best evidence points to escaped or released pet birds around nineteen ninety. A few birds found each other, started breeding, and discovered that Telegraph Hill's microclimate — sheltered, relatively warm, full of fruit trees — was perfect habitat. The flock grew. And grew.

In two thousand and twenty-three, San Francisco did something remarkable: they officially designated the wild parrots as the city's Official Animal. Not a native species. Not a symbolic creature. A flock of escaped South American pets. That's San Francisco for you — even the official wildlife is immigrant and improvised.

Now, the steps themselves. The Filbert Street Steps are one of the most beautiful urban walks in any American city. About four hundred wooden stairs descend through lush, semi-wild gardens maintained by volunteers. The gardens are thick with fuchsias, roses, trumpet vines, and succulents. It feels less like a city staircase and more like a trail through a secret jungle that happens to have houses on either side.

The views from the top are staggering — the bay, the bridges, Alcatraz, the downtown skyline. But keep your eyes on the trees, too. The parrots roost in the cypresses and palms along the steps, and if the flock is home, the noise is extraordinary. Three hundred parrots arguing at full volume. You can't miss them.