Bird Brother

Bird Brother

I was passing the new book rack at the library and saw this. I never heard of it. I just looked up the reviews and was surprised it had very good reviews. I will try to read it and report on it but my backlog is crazy. Anyone else here that has read it?

*Updated Jan 5, 2023

I read about 75% of it last night. Not bad. Clear, direct writing for an easy read. It is mostly a memoir with little real falconry so far. No hunts or anything like it, yet. Another example of biophilia providing solace and redemption for troubled souls. Mike Tyson and his pigeons come to mind.

Stotts had a good scene where a red tail footed him in front of a street crowd. He had to grin and bear the pain to keep the hawk from doing more damage. It reminded me of a similar scenario in Steve’s A Rage for Falcons where he was footed and brought to his knees by the pain.

Also, Tim Gallagher covered some of the same ground in the above book. I think he described doing prison time like Stotts did.

Lift by by Rebecca K. O’Connor may fit the sub genre, too, based on Steve’s description in A Sportsman’s Library.

While looking for the Gallagher book, I saw the above article on another black falconer and rodeo clown. Gallagher wrote about him on his blog a few years back, too. Wow, it was in 2016. I didn’t figure that.

A video on him.

I also remember a 3rd black falconer who was into goshawks and breeding them I think. I wanted to see his book on them but $$$.

It is good to see men and women of all backgrounds getting into the sport.

Master Falconer Rodney Stotts Extols the ‘Healing Power of Wildlife’

I just read the Gallagher piece on Shawn Hayes and saw this review of the Stotts book in a link on the same web page.