Meet your neighbors: the falconer, his falcon & hawk

Good morning, DMV! It’s Wednesday, July 29.

Last week, I met a falcon — a gyr-peregrine hybrid — named KatElena. Her human, Rodney Stotts, placed her on my gloved hand. She wore a leather hood, and I wasn’t sure what she could perceive or sense, so I spent my brief moment with her speaking calmly in an attempt to assure her she was safe.

Rodney, a master falconer, and two of his raptors were in Georgetown at the headquarters of the World Wildlife Fund, which invited him to meet their summer interns and expose them to careers in conservation and sustainability. Other tenants in the WWF building, including a group of rapt preschoolers, convened in the atrium for his talk.

María-Elena Montero, president of the DC Bird Alliance who works with Rodney, had invited me to the event. Who wouldn’t want to meet a falconer and his raptors?

The kids asked a lot of questions. How do they drink? How do they sleep? What do they eat? He answered each question with charm and humor: “They eat meat, so they don’t go to McDonald’s to get a salad. They’re carnivores.”

Rodney, 55, grew up in Southeast D.C. He started working in 1992 with the Earth Conservation Corps, which cleaned up the Anacostia River and had a raptor program that reintroduced bald eagles to D.C. in the 90s.

But those were rough years in D.C., when there were open-air drug markets. He was also dealing drugs. He said around 1993 or 1994, he went to 33 funerals in one year.

“Pretty much everybody back then was in some sort of drug business, whether they were selling cocaine, powder, weed, ‘love boat,’ to make money. That’s what you did. I ended up getting locked up for a little short stint,” he told me.

Released in 2003, Rodney returned to his work in conservation.

“I used the animals to heal … slowly as I got into the animals, I left the streets alone.”

Around 2010, he decided he wanted to become a falconer. Seven years later, he received his permit to be a master falconer.

He now lives on a 6.9-acre “human sanctuary with animals” in Charlotte Court House, Virginia. He calls his property Dippy’s Dream, named after his mother who was nicknamed Dippy. His sanctuary is home to horses, goats, rabbits, chickens, roosters, ducks, KatElena the gyr-peregrine falcon, Agnes the Harris’s hawk and seven dogs.

Many of his animals are named after his late loved ones: after his uncle Coot and son Devin, both of whom were fatally shot; his cousin Tutu, who died in a car accident.

Using their names keeps their memory alive.

“They say we die twice: once when you physically die, and the last time someone mentions your name … If you have to call that person’s name every single day, it gives you those memories,” he told me on a call last night. “It keeps them like they’re still here, for me. I still talk to them. I hear whatever it is that they would’ve told me if they were here.”

He frequently gives raptor talks — including in jails, hospitals and homes for the elderly. The ones that have meant the most to him were for two critically ill children, through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

“To be able to show up and see the smiles on the little kids’ faces … you know [their] life is short, and they asked for you. They wanted a raptor experience, and you get to do it.”

You can learn more about Rodney and his work in his biography, “Bird Brother: A Falconer's Journey and the Healing Power of Wildlife,” and the 2020 documentary, “The Falconer.”

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Tom Fields, 67, of the Columbia Heights neighborhood of D.C. sent in this photo of a snakehead, an invasive species from Asia, in Rock Creek Park.

“They are edible,” he wrote in his submission. “I had one at a Thai restaurant several years ago. It was GOOD. We need to harvest more of them.”

Did you catch any photos of the storm yesterday? Seen any birds of prey? Share your photos of midsummer life in the DMV.

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