page_title: Wings for My Flight
section_title: Content summary
hierarchical_section_title: Wings for My Flight / Content summary
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Chimney Rock (far right), Companion Rock (Center) and Great House Pueblo (left) within the Chimney Rock Archaeological Area, part of the San Juan National Forest located in southwest Colorado. Sitting atop the mesa on the left is the Great House Pueblo, constructed around 1000 A.D., and the more visible Chimney Rock Fire Lookout, constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930s.
context_page_description: Wings for My Flight: The Peregrine Falcons of Chimney Rock is a 1991 book by American wildlife biologist Marcy Cottrell Houle. Wings for My Flight documents Houle's observations of a pair of the then-endangered peregrine falcons at Chimney Rock, a prominent rock formation in Colorado, while employed by the Colorado Division of Wildlife in the summer of 1975. To protect the falcons, Houle had to halt a million-dollar project to turn ancient Anasazi ruins in the area into a tourist attraction and faced opposition and harassment by the Chimney Rock community as a result.
  By 1975, peregrine falcons had been reduced to 324 pairs in North America, primarily as a result of DDT, a widely used pesticide. DDT lowered estrogen levels in female peregrines and inhibited the production of calcium, causing eggs to thin and break during incubation. Recovery efforts for the peregrine falcon have been remarkably successful: agricultural DDT was banned by the U.S. in 1972 and efforts to breed and train peregrine falcons in captivity to later release to the wild were effective. In 1999, the peregrine falcon was removed from the U.S. Endangered Species list.
context_section_description: The events of Wings for My Flight take place throughout 1975. Marcy Cottrell Houle (then "Marcy Cottrell"), a 21-year-old wildlife biologist, is sent by her supervisor, Barry Layne, to the U.S. Forest Service office near Chimney Rock in Colorado, where a pair of peregrine falcons reside. The pair is one of only seven pairs remaining in the Rocky Mountains region. Mr. Preston Fitch, an administrator involved with the peregrine falcon project, criticizes Houle for her lack of experience in the field upon meeting her. Nevertheless, Mr. Fitch introduces Houle to Chimney Rock. He explains that the Forest Service spent more than half a million dollars building a road which led to Chimney Rock; work on the road had to be discontinued upon discovery of the falcons. Further, the Chimney Rock area is home to 250 Anasazi ruins dated between 900 and 1100. The Chimney Rock community had been planning a million-dollar development to build a tourist attraction for the ruins. Houle spends several weeks with the peregrine falcons, recording her observations in her notebook. In spite of her initial attempt at maintaining an impersonal relationship with the falcons, Houle names the female peregrine "Jenny" and the male "King Arthur". In the middle of June, after Houle had spent several days of making field observations alone and with limited equipment, Mr. Fitch introduces Houle to her teammate, Alex Porter. He also provides them with a garbage truck for transportation.
  Meanwhile, Houle faces indignation and harassment from the residents of the Chimney Rock community, who view her presence as impeding the progress of the construction of a tourist attraction for the Anasazi ruins. At one point, Maurice Richards, a high-ranking official of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, attempts to host a picnic on an area restricted for the peregrines. When Houle forces him to leave, Richards threatens to fire her. Later, the female peregrine, Jenny, disappears and never returns. A local resident claims she was shot and killed by a member of the Chimney Rock community.As a result of Jenny's disappearance, King Arthur spends several days ignoring the hatchlings that they had been raising. After this period of "grief", King Arthur begins to raise the young falcons singlehandedly. Following this, Houle discovers that of five nestlings hatched by the pair, only two received enough food to survive. Houle names the surviving pair of nestlings "Bold Leopold" and "Albert" after their distinct personalities; Leopold was more courageous and was always the first to try new things, such as flying, whereas Albert was more hesitant.  In spite of all the attempts to intimidate her, the people of Chimney Rock eventually sympathize with Houle after her trailer, containing valuable field equipment as well as personal items, is broken into and vandalized.
caption: Chimney Rock (far right), a prominent geological rock formation in Colorado where the majority of the book's events took place, photographed in 2010
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