THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL, a Love Story. With Wings

Three Rivers Press, 2004., 2004. Paperback. Very Good/Unknown. Octavo, softcover, near fine in blue pictorial wraps. Contains two large color glossy prints of parrots. 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 to 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 originally had 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.". This was filmed in a documentary on PBS. 288 pp. and notes on author.