science

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill rather than just read about it. In short: The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is a 2003 documentary film directed, produced, and edited by Judy Irving. It chronicles the relationship between Mark Bittner, an unemployed musician who lives rent-free in a cabin in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, and a flock of feral parrots that he feeds and looks after.

Key takeaways

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is a 2003 documentary film directed, produced, and edited by Judy Irving. It chronicles the relationship between Mark Bittner, an unemployed musician who lives rent-free in a cabin in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, and a flock of feral parrots that he feeds and looks after. Bittner also wrote a memoir about his experiences with the parrots, which shares the title of the documentary, but has the added subtitle: A Love Story...with Wings. In May 2007, the documentary aired on the PBS series Independent Lens.

Summary Much of the film focuses on the parrots and their individual personalities and relationships with one another and Bittner. The flock is composed primarily of cherry-headed conures, but there is one lonely blue-crowned conure. Some San Francisco residents share the different stories they have heard about the possible origins of the flock. Bittner tells his story as well. He had come down to San Francisco from Seattle to be a musician, but, after giving up on that dream, found himself directionless. Although he would occasionally do odd jobs, he mostly was more or less unemployed and homeless for many years, until he found some stability, thanks to a free place to stay, and purpose (and even minor celebrity), thanks to the relationship he developed with the parrots. The later part of the film depicts Bittner's preparations to vacate his residence, which is about to undergo extensive renovations. He speaks to the city council about the parrots and finds a place to send the few birds that are unable to live with the flock, and so had been living with him. At the end, it is revealed that filmmaker, Judy Irving, and subject, Mark Bittner, began a relationship over the course of making the film.

Production Raising funding for the film was difficult at first, as Irving had to find individual donors, but the proceeds from a fundraiser at which Bittner gave a presentation to a packed theater allowed her to start shooting the film in earnest. The musical score for the film was the final project by Chris Michie, a Bay area musician who was formerly the guitarist for Van Morrison, before his death from melanoma. The film, which Michie did not live to see released, is dedicated to him. Bittner noted that there is humor in the piece, which he believes makes it different from many other nature documentaries.

Awards The film won the Genesis Award for Documentary Film and was nominated for the 2005 Satellite Award for Outstanding Documentary DVD.

Aftermath As is explained in the special features included on the DVD release of the film, about a year after Bittner left Telegraph Hill, he and Irving moved back, to a house near his old one, and he reestablished his connection with the flock of parrots, which had grown some. Bittner and Irving were later married. In 2007 the city of San Francisco instituted a ban on feeding the flock. The ban was supported by Bittner. In 2023, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution designating the conures as San Francisco's Official Animal. The species was chosen by a poll on Twitter, and barely beat out the California sea lion, best known locally as an attraction at Pier 39.

San Francisco parakeet flock According to Bittner, the term "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill", while poetic, is a misnomer, and the flock ranges widely and is not centered on Telegraph Hill. Even in the area of San Francisco around Telegraph Hill, the place where the parakeets commonly nest and are most reliably seen is in Sue Bierman Park near the Ferry Building. Currently (as of 2024), feral parakeets are regularly seen in many of San Francisco's parks and into suburban areas as well. In the 2020s, a collaborative research project between Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue and several UCSF geneticists, titled the San Francisco Red Masked Parakeet Genetics Project, is studying the genetics and spread of this bird population. Among other findings, researchers have found that the birds are a mix of red-masked parakeets (Psittacara erythrogenys) and mitred parakeets (Psittacara mitratus) and form a unique hybrid.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

In research: The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2003 English-language films, 2003 documentary films, 2003 films, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill in simple terms?

Why does The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.