Nicole Perretta has been a falconer for 20 years and started her falconry career flying Jamaica, a red-tailed hawk in North County, San Diego, California. She has had numerous mentors, but Mike Healey is the one she most remembers looking up to. (Literally at 6’5”) She supports her falconry obsession working as an artist, writer, [...]
The sun rises at 6:15 right now. I woke up at 5:30 and thought to myself that if I had the wherewithal to get out of bed, I could be in the field just in time to fly a falcon. Except that it’s April and the falcons are moulting. So I did the other thing I [...]
I went most of my adult life without a dog. And my first dog broke my heart in the crippling way that only first love can. This embarrassed me deeply because I wasn’t a little girl anymore and a dog may be a friend, but she is not a person. She shouldn’t be able to [...]
View at the Office (Napa Plant Site) Current suggested budget cuts on Capitol Hill would eliminate funding for the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) bringing annual funding ($46 million in 2010) to ZERO. I’ll preface here… the budget needs to be cut. We are spending too much money and not enough taxes are [...]
This season was a series of mishaps, training challenges, unexpected weather, surprising moments of good luck and some gorgeous flights. So, yes, pretty much like the last nine seasons, only with it’s own flavor and favorites. Much of my falconry this season also doubled as work. Ducks Unlimited gives me the opportunity to talk about [...]
Part of my desert journey was doing research for the novel I’m writing. Let’s start here. I’m afraid of guns, I always have been. I have no good reason for this. I’ve had no bad experiences. I aimed at clays with a shotgun when I was a teenager and although I didn’t hit anything, I [...]
This is what I discovered. You’re not really alone when you travel hundreds of miles across the desert…not if there are two falcons and a dog in the back of the truck. In moments when your daydreams get the best of you and you suddenly realize you have no idea how far you’ve driven [...]
This is what I know. I should be outside. In the dark just as the clouds begin to glow and Venus still shines brightly, in the heavy air just before the cloudburst, in the half-hour when it’s two degrees too cold to snow, in the evening just before the wind rises and moves the [...]
For Thanksgiving week, I disappeared into the desert with dog and falcons. This was something I had honestly never done, a solitary vacation. My friends told me not to be a hermit, to come out and have some fun in a crowd. I have always loved falconry meets and visits. But I guess I knew [...]
The dog went East. The falcon went West. I stood in the middle and wondered about the likelihood of getting them both back. The sun was warm, the air busy with the trilling of sandhill cranes and the work of bees. A yellow bi-plane was practicing low passes over the clover, the pilot waving. I [...]
