I am so excited! Sometimes dreams do come true and today, I can invite you to see one for yourself.

A new exhibit has just been hung in the entrance way of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge's Visitor Center. In words and photographs the exhibit tells the story of the Northern Aplomado Falcon's return to the skies of southern New Mexico.

The exhibit and more importantly, this falcon's return represent the culmination of many people's dreams and years of hard work. Amazing how much hard work it takes to make a dream come true!

The Northern Aplomado falcon — a strikingly beautiful bird of prey (raptor) — was once widespread in the grasslands of southern Texas, New Mexico and eastern Arizona. By the late 1950s, it had become eradicated from these areas due to a complex chain of events, including habitat change (loss of native vegetation), pesticide use and human persecution.

The Peregrine Fund, with the support of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, took the lead in returning this species to the wild in the United States. After years of research and the development of a captive breeding program, restoration began in Texas in 1993.

Two years later, the project documented its first successful hatching and fledging of a wild Northern Aplomado falcon — the first in the U.S. in almost a half century! Following further success in Texas, releases began in New Mexico in 2006. In 2007, two juveniles were seen near Bosque del Apache's flight deck — the first of these endangered raptors to be seen on the refuge since its creation, in 1939.

This is where the story gets personal.

Erv Nichols and I wanted to be part of this project, and last summer we became Peregrine Fund hack site attendants on Ted Turner's Armendaris Ranch east of Truth or Consequences. A hack site is a place and hacking is the method (terms and methods borrowed from ancient falconry) used to reintroduce an endangered species of raptor back into the wild.

About a week before their fledging age — the age a chick is able to fly — a group of five to seven chicks is flown from the Peregrine Fund's breeding facility to the hack (release) site. The chicks are put into a large white box with one screened side atop a 15-foot tower.

With a minimum of contact, hack site attendants provide food (quail carcasses) and water until the chicks are ready for release.

On release day, several days' supply of food and water is placed on the tower to allow the chicks to fledge undisturbed. The hack box is opened and attendants move to a nearby observation post, where they keep vigil to ward off predators and record each fledgling's progress.

In a successful release, all the young will have fledged by Day 4, when attendants return to clean the tower, provide fresh food and water, and seal the hack box. The fledglings have now found roosts away from the tower and are developing their hunting skills. They still return to the tower morning and evening for fresh quail carcasses and attendants continue to provide food and record detailed observations of the young falcon's behavior for six more weeks.

This gives you a rough idea of the dream to return Northern Aplomado Falcons to their original range and how it is coming true, but I urge you to take the short drive to the Bosque del Apache Visitor Center to see the full exhibit, which will be on display through October.

And when you're driving the tour loop, keep an eye out for these beautiful birds. With the continuing success of the Peregrine Fund's reintroduction project, the Northern Aplomado falcon may become a regular part of the Bosque experience!

Sandra Noll is a longtime volunteer for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. She and her partner, Erv Nichols, reside part time in Socorro.

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