Meet Your Falconer
Madison: The Falconer Behind Wild Edge
This isn’t a job Madison fell into. It’s twelve years of apprenticeship, fieldwork, and a bond with two hawks that started with a library book at 14 years old.
How It Started
A Book at 14 Changed Everything
At 14, Madison picked up a book about falconry and couldn’t put it down. It wasn’t just the birds that pulled her in — it was the equipment, the technique, the centuries of tradition behind every part of it. What started as curiosity turned into a discovery: people were still practicing this ancient art, right now, and she could learn to do it too.
That discovery never let go. What began as a teenager’s fascination with a library book became a genuine apprenticeship — years of mentorship, fieldwork, and the slow, deliberate process every falconer has to go through to earn the right to fly a hawk.
Twelve Years in the Making
Earning the Title of Master Falconer
Falconry doesn’t let you skip steps. It’s one of the most heavily regulated wildlife activities in the country, and reaching Master Falconer — the highest level of licensure in the sport — takes over a decade of documented apprenticeship, mentorship, and hands-on fieldwork with birds of prey. Madison has spent that decade-plus earning it, one season and one bird at a time.
She has since applied for a falconry educational permit, a step toward bringing accredited, curriculum-level raptor programming to schools and community groups across the region — work she considers as much a part of her calling as flying a hawk.
Her Partners
Bruno and Gnocchi Aren't Props — They're Partners
Madison’s two red-tailed hawks, Bruno and Gnocchi, aren’t trained for a show — they’re trained through the same relationship every falconer builds with their bird: daily handling, flight conditioning, patience, and trust earned over time. The bond looks effortless when you see it in the field. It isn’t. It’s the product of hundreds of hours together.
When guests meet Bruno or Gnocchi, they’re not watching a performance. They’re seeing what a real falconer-bird partnership actually looks like — something Madison has spent over a decade building and still works at every single day.
Bruno
Red-Tailed Hawk
Gnocchi
Red-Tailed Hawk
Why Wild Edge Exists
This Isn't a Performance. This Is Madison's Life.
Twelve years in, Madison still believes falconry isn’t a show — it’s a relationship built on patience, skill, and respect. She started Wild Edge because she wanted other people to feel what she felt the first time a hawk landed on her glove: that mix of wonder and quiet awe that got her into this in the first place.
Wild Edge is her full-time pursuit of that idea — not a side hustle, not a hobby on display, but a decade-plus of genuine mastery she’s built her life around and is still building.
