Back in 1974, 22-year-old Mark Bittner left Seattle for the Bay Area
with dreams of becoming a rock star. But after a failed attempt at
becoming a music legend, Bittner found himself shacking up with a
street vendor in a rickety VW van, broke and out of options. He was
ready to get out. The last thing he expected was to become the "Saint
Francis of Telegraph Hill," a published writer and naturist who
would spend 14 years studying a bunch of wild birds.
He's now also the subject of Judy Irving's documentary The Wild
Parrots of Telegraph Hill. It may be a movie about a bird-watcher
and a flock of parrots, but it doesn't feel like one of PBS's made-for-classroom
docs. Parts of it are educational. Helpful factoids about these
cherry-headed birds, which mysteriously appeared in San Francisco
during the '70s, give the film its scientific value. But the real
subject is a 42-year-old dharma bum's intense relationship with the
parrots and his struggle to justify calling this interaction his livelihood.
You have to admire this guy's dedication; Wild Parrots shows
him doing little else but feeding, nursing, and observing the feral
birds. As I watched Irving shrewdly capture his overwhelming passion,
I began to fear this was another Christopher Guest flick, expecting
a parrot-wielding Eugene Levy to tap-dance into the next scene. But
no, Bittner really does bird-watch for a living. The guy's written
a book and everything. He insists, "I work. It's just a lot of
the work I do, you don't get paid for."
So why and how, you ask, does an income-deficient drifter (who somehow
manages to roost in one of S.F.'s most affluent areas) choose to look
at parrots all day? Bittner's answer: love.
Works for me. Animals have feelings too, and Bittner swears he can
sense these emotions when he interacts with the parrots. After a moving
incident with a sick conure named Tupelo, the dutiful bird-watcher
had to finally admit he was attached. To deny that animals can feel,
Bittner says, is "cruel nonsense." He's not an eccentric,
he asserts, just a guy in touch with nature.
Nevertheless, he's earned a fairly unique reputation – and although
he's managed to avoid pariah status among his neighbors, tourists
still call him things like "the parrot man" or even "a
communist, but a nice one." He's not a fan of the epithets, but
what can you do? "What's the difference between you and the pigeon
lady?" Irving asks in one scene. Bittner sighs in response, then
admits, "I don't know."
David Kim
'The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill' screens Fri/16, 7
p.m., Kabuki; April 24, 8:45 p.m., Kabuki. For theater information
see box, page 54.
