Man on quest to save wild birds in ‘Parrots’

Picasso keeps getting into fights. In fact, he’s blind in one eye from one of them. But his girlfriend, Sophie, is always there for him. Mingus, an antisocial moper by nature, loves to bob his head to blues riffs. Pushkin is a single dad. No woman to call his own. Just a nest full of kids.

And then there’s Connor. Took off for 10 days when his gal, Katharine, died. He’s been despondent ever since. They’re all regulars at San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, where they come for their usual poison: sunflower seeds.

They’re parrots, you see. And in “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,” these conures, cherry-headed, blue-crowned and mitred, are the fluttery friends of the ponytailed Mark Bittner, a musician-turned-Francis of Assisi, who spends most of his time with them.

Bittner is the one behind all those colorful monikers. He’s also the only one on this particular San Francisco hill who feeds, takes care of and (as we rapidly learn) loves them.

Imported originally from points south (Ecuador and Peru), Bittner’s birds (although he claims no ownership) are mostly escapees (or their immediate descendants) from opened bird cages or transportation compartments at airports around the United States. There are communities of birds like this across the country. But Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Judy Irving has chosen to focus on Bittner, who (at least during filming) lives in a building adjacent to the hill.

This is a charmfest of a movie, for bird-lovers and non-bird-lovers alike. It’s not just about Bittner’s affection and care for the conures, touching as that is. It’s about the spiritual journey he has taken from a careerist path (if street musician and would-be rock star could be conceived as one) to becoming simply a friend of conures.

There is a structure to the story that Irving tells. Bittner is asked to leave his cottage because of redevelopment, which means essentially saying farewell to his birds. Suddenly, through Bittner’s tears, the relationship between human and animal feels like a rich and poignant one, especially when he recounts a moving experience with the first bird he befriended, Tupelo.

But there are other blessings in store. And it’s testament to Bittner’s warmhearted resilience and affection for his fellow creatures that he gets to enjoy a few of his own.