Peregrine Falcon

Stories of the Blue Meanie

James H. Enderson, Robert Katona

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780292705906
• eBook ISBN: 9780292756212

A superb success as a bird, combining great speed, aeronautical grace, and fearlessness...inhabitant of wild places, inaccessible cliffs, and skyscrapers...worldwide dweller, trans-equatorial migrant, and docile captive—the peregrine falcon stands alone among all others of its kind. Perhaps this is why so many varied people rushed to its aid when it faced decimation by pesticide poisoning.

In this personal and highly entertaining memoir, Jim Enderson tells stories of a lifetime spent studying, training, breeding, and simply enjoying peregrine falcons. He recalls how his boyhood interest in raptors grew into an ornithological career in which he became one of the leading experts who helped identity DDT as the cause of the peregrine falcon's sudden and massive decline across the United States. His stories reveal both the dedication that he and fellow researchers brought to the task of studying and restoring the peregrine and the hair-raising adventures that sometimes befell them along the way. Enderson also seamlessly weaves in the biology and natural history of the peregrine, as well as anecdotes about its traditional and widespread use in falconry as an aggressive yet tractable hunter, to offer a broad portrait of this splendid and intriguing falcon.

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents 
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• I. The Nature of the Falcon
• II. My Early Searches
• III. First Wild Peregrines
• IV. First Surveys
• V. Disaster Decade
• VI. Big River
• VII. Northern Peregrines
• VIII. Falcons on the Beach
• IX. Early Falconry in North America
• X. The Timely Invention of Peregrine Husbandry
• XI. Searches in Far Places
• XII. Peregrines Regain the Skies
• XIII. The Better-Known Meanie
• XIV. Peregrines and People
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index