You’ve heard of the birdman of Alcatraz, right? Well, I guess you could call me the birdman of Tahoe. After all, in school everyone called me “birdboy,” and it fit, as I love birds and have always sought them out. From pigeons to hawks and owls.

It started for me when I was 15 years old (I’m now 66 years young, Ha. Ha.) when I had a flock of about 80 pigeons, which would fly hundreds of feet high, then return to our house everyday. I loved to watch them fly. They are such colorful birds.

Anyway, after my time with pigeons I moved on to becoming a falconer and trained many birds, including red-tailed hawks, sparrow hawks and great horned owls, for the purpose of falconry. (Nowadays, though, you have to be a licensed falconer to have a bird) and at one point I raised two baby golden eagles to maturity (with government permission to do it) and released them on the Fallon Fish and Game Reserve. All in all, though, I’ve raised and trained many kinds of birds in my life, you see, including pigeons, hawks, owls and even a “steppe eagle,” which I acquired while stationed in Germany. I named that eagle Mrs. Robinson after the Simon and Garfunkel song.

As you can see, birds have been a big part of my life ( I also draw and paint them frequently) and to this day I love to watch the wildlife of Tahoe, and especially all the gulls, ducks and geese you see down at Regan Beach. They’re beautiful. Well my Tahoe Friends, keep rockin’ the lake. I guess you could say I’m the birdman of Tahoe.

Theodore Harris III

South Lake Tahoe, California