News and Reviews

I went walking up the Greenwich steps on the east side of Telegraph Hill one afternoon, seeking the sky and a moment of breath, and ran into Mark Bittner, for whom in turn a flock of wild-flying parrots appeared. It was a liberating moment, right on the Hill where I had lived and worked some forty years earlier. And now here's Mark's full story. I think of Thoreau saying, "Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet." Ferity, wildness, fierceness--of goodness? of lovers? This instructive, surprising, sweet book shows how and why--(and I'm honored to be one of the parrots in the trees.)

Gary Snyder, author of Turtle Island and Mountains and Rivers without End
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A flock of wild parrots living in San Francisco--in winter? In the charming memoir The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, Mark Bittner tells how he cared for some adorably pesky parrots, became an expert on their behavior, and eventually turned into the star of a documentary film. For devoted birders everywhere.

"Editor's Choice"
January 2004 issue
Reader's Digest
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By falling in with a flock of wild parrots, Bittner has learned more about a real parrot society than those of us studying wild or captive parrots could ever hope to learn. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill makes essential and delightful reading for anyone with an interest in the complex lives of intelligent and engaging wild animals. By interweaving the parrots' struggle to thrive in San Francisco with his own personal and spiritual challenges, Bittner's work ventures beyond a great becoming-one-with-the-animals tale; he successfully inspires readers to find nature and peace in whatever place on the planet they happen to occupy.

James D. Gilardi, Ph.D., Director, World Parrot Trust
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Charming debut chronicling a life-changing relationship with a flock of birds, which inspired...a documentary film (same title)...Thirty years ago, Bittner moved to San Francisco as a dharma bum, Beat seeker, odd-jobber, and musician. Before long, he was homeless and penniless, but for 14 years he stayed true to his hungry but rather aimless spiritual journey, refusing to submit to working at a deadening job, anxious but ready to stay only a step ahead of the gutter. Eventually, he took a position as a housekeeper to an elderly lady in return for a rent-free apartment next door to her home on Telegraph Hill. There he met the parrots, a wild colorful flock with humorous eyes, "as if they concealed the punchline to some joke." In short order, they twined. Bittner was respectful of the birds' wildness even while he sought a close communion with them. He tendered food as well as his company, and ultimately the parrots gave him their trust, or at least what passes as such. The author recounts in unpresumptuous and garrulous fashion the days they spent together, one man hoping to touch the thrum of the universe and a flock of blue-crowned and cherry-headed conures willing to provide a glimpse into an altogether different plane of existence. The special appeal here lies in Bittner's ability to rouse in the reader the giddiness of his time with the parrots: the grace of having a few of the birds live inside his apartment, the pleasure of learning their calls and pecking order, the strange moments of eye contact, the canny instances of cross-species communication, his care of the individual birds when they fell ill. "At times," he writes, "all of us sense a poetry in the universe-strange coincidences that speak to us in a strong way." Via parrots? Why not, when Bittner's relationship with the parrots is profound enough to spark envy. A pleasure and an education.

Kirkus Reviews
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In this appealing, heartfelt account of one man’s attempt to bond with wildlife, the author tells how he made friends with a flock of birds and in the process found meaning in his own life. In the early 1990s, Bittner, a 42-year-old who was still living like a “dharma bum,” discovered that there were wild parrots in the trees and on the power lines near the house he was caretaking on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill. Having nothing else to do, he decided to feed the birds on his fire escape and occupy his time by observing them. Soon they appeared every day, noisily demanding seeds, and for the next few years, he devoted most of his time to the wily and comical birds, which turned out to be cherry-headed and blue-crowned conures—-escapees that had originally been caught in South America—-and their progeny. Crowds gathered outside his house to see him with the parrots perched on his arms and head taking seeds from his hands, and he became famous as “the birdman of Telegraph Hill.” Because he found that each bird had its own personality, he named them according to their individual characteristics, and in this charming record of their activities, the seem almost human. At a time when he lived like a hermit, the birds brought him joy and became his only friends. It’s a bittersweet story—-that is, until a documentary filmmaker shows up at his doorstep.

Publishers Weekly
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I just read Mark Bittner's forthcoming nonfiction book The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill and it is full of surprises. Over the past several years, San Franciscans became aware that Bittner cared for and chronicled the whimsical flock of cherry-headed conures that screeches across the city sky each day, attracting curiosity from the Greenwich Steps to Cow Hollow to Cole Valley. Bittner says the steadily growing flock now numbers around 120 birds.

What will surprise even those most familiar with Bittner's story--relinquished dreams of rock stardom led to odd jobs and squatting until parrots redefined his existence--is that Bittner is an excellent writer. By the end of his tale, you will no longer see humans as the center of the universe, if you ever did.

Mister SF

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