Book Reviews
by Jill Wolfson
San Jose Mercury News, February 2004

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story With Wings
By Mark Bittner

Learning about life from a flock of parrots

I've read enough books by now to know that you can't judge a book by its cover. Still, I couldn't help but gravitate to this inspirational saga of one man finding his life's meaning in the most serendipitous way. On the cover of ''The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story With Wings'' (Harmony, 288 pp., $22), posed in front of a blue sky with puffy white clouds, sit a line of colorful and animated parrots. Two look like they are necking. One hangs upside down, obviously the class clown. OK, so I'm a sucker for anthropomorphizing, but it's this same appeal that turned Mark Bittner, a self-described ''dharma bum'' into the ''Birdman of Telegraph Hill.''

They were different from other birds—so different that it was difficult to think of them as birds at all. They seemed more like monkeys. Sometimes they'd perch on the power lines and, for no apparent reason, scream like lunatics. They also liked to hang upside down. Occasionally I'd see two of them dangling side by side and shrieking hysterically while trying to bite each other in the face.

Bittner, an unemployed odd-jobber, became fascinated by this gang of exotic birds that have made San Francisco home. With no job to hold him down, the author devoted himself to getting to know the birds and gaining their trust. He began by setting out seed on his fire escape and eventually had the wild creatures eating out of his hand. With birds perched upon his head and arms, Bittner, who had been living an isolated life, quickly became a tourist attraction, as people gathered to witness the daily feedings.

The birds expanded his world in many ways. He learned how to take photographs and how to do research. He became a self-taught expert in the ecosystems of Ecuador and the history of Telegraph Hill. He fell in love with a filmmaker who was documenting his newfound fame.

As in any good nature story, this tale has deeper undertones. Before the parrots came along, Bittner had been a self-described spiritual rolling stone, reading books such as the I Ching, the Analects of Confucius, the Dhammapada and ''even the Bible.''

But it was in his relationship with a flock of parrots that he learned a bigger truth. As he explains, ''The understanding that ultimately came to mefrom looking in the parrots' eyes was that their consciousness is one with mine. We are all one consciousness, and each finite being embodies a little piece of it.''