Henry Walters took an unlikely route to falconry. An undergraduate Latin course led him to Frederick the Great’s 13th-century treatise, De arte venandi cum avibus, or Concerning the Art of Hunting with Birds. Here, for the first time in history, a person was taking the lives of birds—their habits, their eccentricities, even their personalities—seriously! After graduating, a traveling fellowship brought him to Ireland’s School of Falconry, where he apprenticed with some of the finest falconers in Europe, flying raptors such as the peregrine falcon, sparrowhawk, Eurasian eagle-owl, ferruginous hawk, and northern goshawk. Working in Ireland, Henry fell in love with a pursuit that could spark the imagination of people from such different places and walks of life.
On returning to the United States, Henry earned his falconry license in Massachusetts before eventually moving to New Hampshire, where he worked as a seasonal raptor biologist for New Hampshire Audubon and co-founded the New Hampshire Young Birders Club. As a teacher, naturalist, and writer, Henry has found ways to make environmental education a creative endeavor. Now a Master Falconer, he lives in the town of Hancock with his young family.