Quartet Adds Color to an O.C. Pier

People react in different ways to the sight of Ski Meinschein’s blood.

Some look horrified when he tells them that one of the colorful parrots on his shoulder just took a chunk of his finger; others can’t repress a smile as he holds out the gory nub as proof of the tale.

With those, he minces no words. “You laughing at me?” Meinschein snarls. “I’m in pain!”

Then he cracks a broad smile and pulls off the fake gashed thumb that always elicits a laugh. “You want to kiss the bird?” Meinschein asks, finally getting down to business. “Raise your lips and relax. That’ll be $2.”

Meinschein plies his trade at the base of Newport Pier, where he’s been a fixture for more than three decades. This bearded man with a yellow ponytail and gaily feathered safari hat is known as the Bird Man. More specifically, the Bird Man of Newport Beach. Most specifically, the man whose antics with the exotic birds he loves bring smiles to the faces of passersby.

“It’s kept me out of the bars,” Meinschein quips of his weekly sojourns aboard the ancient yellow bicycle with white-walled tires and a straw basket that serves as his mobile aviary. “It’s good, wholesome entertainment. I want people to see that, in the beginning when God created the heavens and the Earth, he also created these beautiful birds.”

As effusive as he is about his feathered companions, the Bird Man is equally tight-lipped regarding his personal life. Although looking to be at least in his mid-70s, Meinschein won’t divulge his age. “I don’t do numbers,” he explains. “I failed math in school.”

What he will admit to, however, is being a retired oil worker from southern Indiana who moved to Newport Beach in 1974. Meinschein said he first got interested in the avian world “when I got a little bird for my girlfriend as a Christmas present and then, when we broke up, I got custody.”

Today he owns three of the magnificent creatures: two large South American scarlet macaws named Rojo and Chi Chi (ages 27 and 24, respectively) and a lory from New Guinea named Fireball, who at 13 is the youngster of the group. Chi Chi and Fireball have each been with him for 10 years, Meinschein says; Rojo has been his for 20.

“I’m happily married to three exotic birds” is how he describes the feathered family with whom he shares a small studio apartment looking out on an alley five blocks from the pier.

Where the four really come alive, though, is near the water on weekends, as they do their shtick for the crowd. “Everyone loves it,” the Bird Man says of the ever-changing and sometimes unpredictable shows for which he gladly accepts donations.

One performance, for instance, featured -- among other things -- a bird unexpectedly urinating on the head of an unsuspecting child. “They aren’t unhealthy,” Meinschein later said of his pets, “but they are pretty messy.”

The reviews were raves nonetheless.

“He’s cool,” said Stacie Kaleel, 31, of Huntington Beach, “and the birds are really beautiful.”

Roger Cohen, 48, of Newport Beach said he appreciated the Bird Man’s contribution to the “creative culture” of the area. “I like people who are artists and express the beauty of nature,” he said.

And Susan Stephan, 33, said of Meinschein that he definitely “adds color to the scene.”

A recent hospitalization for open heart surgery has kept him homebound for several weeks. But as soon as he’s feeling better, the safari-hatted gentleman vows, he’ll reinhabit his perch at the pier.

“I’m not a spring chicken anymore,” Meinschein admits, “but I just know that people appreciate God’s creations.”