Bird lovers, and people who have birds as pets, will love this story! It is a true story. It’s full title is: The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story with Feathers. The book was written by Mark Bittner, who was homeless and directionless when the story started. It seems he is looking for a religion, as well as some work that is meaningful. He also wants to fall in love.
Mark Bittner ends up in San Francisco, in the Telegraph Hill area. He is there because he is watching a house for someone, on a temporary basis. Right away, he notices that there seem to be wild parrots flying around in flocks. This interests him, and he sets out to learn more.
After meeting these parrots, he thinks it would be cool to have a wild bird as a friend. He doesn’t want to make the parrot his pet. He likes the thought of a friendly parrot who knows him and comes to visit him, and who also can go back to the flock whenever it wants to.
The book is filled with information about the parrots. Bittner did lots of research about this specific type of parrot. He lists scientific information about what kinds of parrots they are, as well as factual information about just how parrots get from jungles in Africa to here in America (most of which is a really terrible experience for the birds). Bittner also includes information about where the parrots live in San Francisco, and how that came about.
The book is loaded with stories about the flock of parrots, which Bittner gets to know well after he starts feeding them. He names individual birds, keeps track of which ones are pairs, and notes which birds are siblings. He sees all sorts of examples of intelligence in these parrots. Many have a sense of humor. Each one has its own personality. The stories in this book are sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and always captivating.
By the end, Bittner has found everything he started out looking for, and I am glad to hear that. He seems like a good guy, and he had all sorts of struggles to get through. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is a quick read, and hard to put down. I recommend it to anyone who loves birds, especially those who have parrots or cockatiels at home with them. I have cockatiels, and found myself seeing something of my birds in the birds Mark Bittner describes.
This book review of The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill – by Mark Bittner is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites.
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