Dick Dekker's observations of wild peregrines--their habits, habitats, conservation and behavior. The peregrine falcon, fastest creature on earth, stoops out of the blue to take its wary prey by surprise. Yet, this high drama is rarely witnessed by people. This book offers the unique accounts of a passionate expert who has see more than 2,000 hunts by wild peregrines. A perceptive and personal narrative aimed at a wide readership, this book portrays the fabled falcon in a variety of landscapes, migrating over the prairies, caring for its young at the nest of wintering on the coast were it meets its nemesis, the mighty bald eagle.

Theodorus Johannes (Dick) Dekker was born in Rotterdam on 19 October 1933. Just after the outbreak of the Second World War and before Rotterdam was bombed, he moved to Haarlem, where he received his secondary education at Het Triniteitslyceum. In 1950 he began a career in graphic design and publish-ing at Uitgeverij De Spaarnestad. Nature study had become a lifelong passion. At 17, he sold his first illustrated articles to youth magazines and eventually to a wide range of print media. His list of publications in the Dutch language, which continues to grow, now includes 222 titles and seven books. In 1959 he emi-grated to Canada in search of unspoiled wilderness. After almost having lost his life in a canoe accident in Yukon, he returned to Haarlem in 1961, resuming his nature writing until 1964, when he again left for Canada, accompanied by his wife Irma. In Edmonton, Alberta, he established himself as a free-lance graphic designer until 1982. Since then he has devoted himself full-time to wildlife writing and field research, which includes long-range mammal surveys in Jasper National Park, and ongoing studies of the avian inventory and habitat succession at Beaverhills Lake, a Ramsar wetland and Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve. He has given talks about wolves and other wildlife at a number of national and international conferences and nature group meetings. His growing list of pub-lications in the english language now sits at 180 titles, including 27 papers in refereed journals, nine books, and three scripts for television documentaries. Throughout, his main focus has been on the dynamics of predator and prey interactions, with particular emphasis on the Peregrine and other falcons.

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