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Rick's
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Sunday, March 19, 2000 A PRECARIOUS PERCH Great Notions often get derailed, and when Osgood and I got the idea of trying to find some of those rugged birds who think it is possible to hasten the arrival of spring by hitting golf balls at the driving range at Jackson Park--63rd Street and Stony Island Avenue--we instead encountered some even tougher birds. They were in the skies and trees and on the light poles above us: parrots, the untrained observer might have called them. "Monk parakeets," said the worldly Osgood. We both knew that for more than 20 years, the area has been home to such birds, probably the progeny of pets that escaped captivity and decided to settle here rather than try the arduous journey back to their native Brazil. But we had never seen them venture this far from their familiar turf, on the north side of 53rd Street near South Shore Drive in Hyde Park. Predominantly green and with piercing squawks, they enchanted at least one of their neighbors. Mayor Harold Washington lived in an apartment building across the street and came to consider his 50 or so bird/neighbors his good-luck charms. Now, an estimated 250 of the birds are nesting in South Side trees and, more problematically, on utility poles. Two years ago, when one of the birds' large nests caused a power failure, Commonwealth Edison workers destroyed some of them. Tribune writer Peter Kendall described the sad scene this way: ". . . Workers toppled more nests, swinging at them as if they were pinatas, green birds flying out like candy." They've always had their detractors. In 1988, after Washington's death, the U.S. Department of Agriculture wanted to get rid of the birds. They were saved by the efforts of the Harold Washington Memorial Parrot Defense Fund. The government argued then, and some argue now, that the birds are a threat to crops. Osgood and I drove around the area for hours. We didn't see one farm in peril; not one farm at all. |
