What does it feel like to hold a fledgling Peregrine Falcon -- a NH endangered species -- in your hands as a band is fixed around its leg, to identify it wherever it might go. How does something so magnificent yet threatened feel? Is it fluffy? Do the feathers pad its body or does it compress like cotton candy to nothing more than a pile of sharp little bones? Is the hand-sized baby bird fragile?
These questions flew through my mind when I was asked to help band one of the five baby birds born only three weeks before. I listened to my instructions from the naturalist: do not make sudden movements, if it pecks you do not jerk your hands. And then slowly I reached out, gently wrapping my hands around the soft body. For those few minutes as I steadied the little bird, I had crossed a line between my world and his. I could feel a racing heart, a little warmth — I touched wild.
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