If there is a more joyful, uplifting true story in a more enchanting documentary form, I've never seen it. And I haven't seen a finer human being than Mark Bittner or a more ecstatically beautiful friendship than his with "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill."

		'The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill' Rating: G. Starring: Mark Bittner. Director: Judy Irving.

It is 83 minutes of pure magic, this chronicle of a jobless San Francisco street person -- failed poet-singer-songwriter -- with no mission or purpose in life until his miraculous bonding with a flock of displaced parrots.

"Cherry-headed conure" is the critters' formal name, and nothing is more stunning in this stunning film than the title characters themselves. Their gorgeous lime-green bodies have an almost psychedelic shimmer, in dazzling contrast to the glow of their cherry-red heads. Spotting one or a pair of them in their native Ecuador or even North American captivity is a treat. Gazing on upward of 50 of them together in the oxymoronic "urban wild" of San Francisco is breathtaking.

How the hell did they get there?

Caught by the thousands in Ecuador, they were sold as pets in the States -- beautiful but problematic. Hating captivity, they were constantly looking to escape, squawked endlessly, bit people when given the chance, and were generally unhappy. So were many of their owners, who often let 'em loose to be rid of them.

Something about birds of a feather .... Being among the smartest, they assembled, adapted their diet to California sunflower-seed cuisine, and began to live wild -- and breed -- in their curious, comical, contentious way, while allowing themselves to be "tamed" and cared for by Bittner, a gentle protector who came to know them intimately and in many case individually, by name.

Take Mingus, for example -- the one wild bird who didn't want to be wild. When he behaved badly, Bittner punished him by putting him not in a cage but outside of the house. (He would beg to be let back in.) Or the soulful Connor, the one and only blue-crowned parrot in the bunch, whose more melancholy personality stemmed from the fact that he didn't have a mate.

Most fascinating is the astonishing (and obvious) exchange of emotions between soulful, soft-spoken Bittner, "the Birdman Near Alcatraz," and his Darwinian survivor-wonderbirds -- so tough in many ways, so vulnerable in others. Director Judy Irving's crystal-clear photography, devoid of artsy FX, complements the hero's simplicity and enhances the inspirational impact.

You can take everybody in the family from Granny and Aunt Thelmah to the 3-year-old to "Parrots of Telegraph Hill," which is playing at the Regent Square.

Toward the end, somebody asks Bittner why he never got a "real" job. The Birdman indicates that, in fact, he did: "A lot of work you don't get paid for -- at least not right away."