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2 books match the query 'Hennen, Mary'

cover of The Falcon Experience: A Flight with Chicago’s Field Museum

The Falcon Experience

A Flight with Chicago’s Field Museum

Illustrations by Peggy Macnamara; Written by Katie Macnamara

Northwestern University Press, 2026

A joyful, educational flight from the halls of Chicago’s Field Museum to the nests of mighty peregrine falcons

Rosie the Tarantula, famous for her adventure in the corridors and collections of Chicago’s celebrated Field Museum of Natural History, is back. This time, Rosie is focused not on spiders, but on falcons! The Falcon Experience brings us with Rosie as she follows Mary Hennen, the museum’s real-life peregrine program director, giving children and parents alike a front-row seat to the lives of these majestic birds and the scientist who cares for them. Rosie learns how falcons fly, hunt, eat, mate, construct nests and raise chicks (via the peregrine webcam!) in unexpected and challenging places in the city. Mary’s teachings also show how humans can be the key to helping our natural environment.

Beautifully illustrated with watercolors by renowned Field Museum artist-in-residence Peggy Macnamara, The Falcon Experience is told by Peggy’s daughter, author and educator Katie Macnamara, in rhyme ideal for reading aloud to children. This keepsake-quality book will delight budding young scientists and their families while providing a colorful, interactive experience with one of Chicago’s foremost cultural institutions.
 

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cover of The Peregrine Returns: The Art and Architecture of an Urban Raptor Recovery

The Peregrine Returns

The Art and Architecture of an Urban Raptor Recovery

Mary Hennen with Peggy Macnamara

University of Chicago Press, 2017

Peregrine falcons have their share of claims to fame. With a diving speed of over two hundred miles per hour, these birds of prey are the fastest animals on earth or in the sky, and they are now well known for adapting from life on rocky cliffs to a different kind of mountain: modern skyscrapers. But adaptability only helps so much. In 1951, there were no peregrines left in Illinois, for instance, and it looked as if the species would be wiped out entirely in North America. Today, however, peregrines are flourishing.

In The Peregrine Returns, Mary Hennen gives wings to this extraordinary conservation success story. Drawing on the beautiful watercolors of Field Museum artist-in-residence Peggy Macnamara and photos by Field Museum research assistant Stephanie Ware, as well as her own decades of work with peregrines, Hennen uses a program in Chicago as a case study for the peregrines’ journey from their devastating decline to the discovery of its cause (a thinning of eggshells caused by a by-product of DDT), through to recovery, revealing how the urban landscape has played an essential role in enabling falcons to return to the wild—and how people are now learning to live in close proximity to these captivating raptors.

Both a model for conservation programs across the country and an eye-opening look at the many creatures with which we share our homes, this richly illustrated story is an inspiring example of how urban architecture can serve not only our cities’ human inhabitants, but also their wild ones.
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