He’s known as the Birdman of Boise, and
is perhaps the most underrated conservationist in the West.
In Cool North Wind: Morley Nelson’s Life with Birds of
Prey, Idaho writer Stephen Stuebner tells the story of a
former Soil Conservation Service employee, “a flamboyant
salt-of-the-earth character, a father of four, a husband, a
widower, a pioneer, a visionary.”
Nelson’s contributions
to preserving raptors are staggering: Over the past 50 years, he
has raised and rehabilitated dozens of birds in his own home,
lectured tirelessly against the rampant shooting of raptors,
designed safer power lines to prevent thousands of birds from being
electrocuted, and campaigned to establish the Snake River Birds of
Prey Natural Area. When a highway expansion forced The Peregrine
Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey out of its original Colorado
location, Nelson helped find a home for it in Boise. He also
brought birds of prey into millions of living rooms and theaters by
contributing to 30 films about raptors, including the Disney film,
The Eagle and the Hawk, which co-starred Nell Newman and inspired
the John Denver album, Aerie. All this from someone who began
practicing falconry for fun as a boy on a South Dakota
farm.
Nelson’s success, it is clear, is the natural
outcome of his incredible work ethic, his contagious passion for
these majestic birds, and his unquestionable charm. Stuebner’s
biography captures Nelson as not only an impressive pioneer in the
environmental movement, but as an intensely frank and big-hearted
model of how to live life robustly. As fellow falconer Charles
Schwartz says, “Morley uses the words beauty, grace and courage to
describe falcons. I’ve often felt that those words describe exactly
what Morley is.”
Cool North Wind,
Stephen Stuebner, Caxton Press, 2002. 458 pages. Hardcover: $24.95.
Caxton Press can be reached at 312 Main, Caldwell, Idaho
83605.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Birdman’s biography soars.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
