The Motts Run Reservoir Park hike is among those featured in '60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Richmond.' MENASHA RIDGE PRESS

Some Christmas book ideas for the armchair adventurer. By Paul Sullivan

Date published: 12/3/2005

I N ARMY BASIC TRAINING, long ago, there was a grizzled old sergeant whose favorite put-down was to scream at some offender: "Whaddya think ya are? Some kinda individjul ?"

I wonder what the old guy would think in today's world, where team playing isn't just important, it's everything--key to jobs, promotions, college admissions and many a trophy and accolade. And is, of course, heavily featured in those new U.S. Army recruiting ads.

But the world has always had a place for that "individjul," even if many of them have a tough time finding their slot in life.

Alan Tennant certainly had no trouble finding his niche. His incredible tale of chasing peregrine falcons across the Western Hemisphere is faithfully chronicled in "On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth With the Peregrine Falcon."

Tennant could just as easily have called his story "The Individualist," as the reader is bound to wonder as much about the author as the incredible falcons that he follows. The name, peregrine, he relates, tells much about this swiftest of birds that wander across and between continents.

Helping out in a falcon research project on the Gulf Coast of Texas, Tennant hooks up with another colorful character, an aging master aviator of the human variety. The two men run afoul of the law and the U.S. Army and head off north in a battered Cessna Skyhawk to track the migration of a young female falcon they dub "Amelia."

Stand there with him, now, alone on a lonely windswept beach, as he deals with a frightened falcon he has captured in order to attach a miniature transmitter to her:

"Closer, though, all I could see were her eyes. Huge and unworldly, they stared up like those of some small, ferocious angel, astonished at her sudden inability to spire away. Vision was her armor, her strength against world, and the force burning from her face so transfixed me that, oblivious, I reached to touch her. Affronted at my advance, the peregrine wrenched onto her back and with a reptilian hiss snatched my hand in her untethered foot. She had not taken her eyes from my face, and her speed and accuracy at seizing a different target were so astonishing it took a second for me to realize she'd pierced my hand."

This has been a year for good nature writing, but no one, I believe, does it better than Alan Tennant. Suffice to say, "On the Wing" is high on my list of Christmas gift books.

Second on that list is something entirely different. And since I have yet to put together my own guidebook to the best trails in our region, I have to recommend the next best thing, Nathan Lott's "60 Hikes Within 60 Miles--Richmond, Including Petersburg, Williamsburg and Fredericksburg."

On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth With the Peregrine Falcon, by Alan Tennant. Alfred A. Knopf, 304 pages, $25. 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles--Richmond. Including Petersburg, Williamsburg and Fredericksburg, by Nathan Lott. Menasha Ridge Press, 256 pages, $16.95.The Grand: The Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, a Photo Journey, by Steve Miller. Wilderness Press, 192 pages, $29.95. by Nathan Lott. Menasha Ridge Press, 256 pages, $16.95. The Grand: The Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, a Photo Journey, by Steve Miller. Wilderness Press, 192 pages, $29.95.

Date published: 12/3/2005