Living with a raven meant letting go of the idea that anything wild could ever belong to me...
It began, as these things often do, with a bird.
Amy Buckley, a bird of prey handler and educator, had spent nearly twenty years working within the steady rhythms of falconry, where trust is built through repetition and control. Before Fable, there were hawks - trained, reliable, and understood within those boundaries. But a raven does not learn like that. And from the beginning, it was clear that Fable was special.
What followed was something closer to a partnership than anything Amy had known before. Raised by hand and allowed to fly freely, Fable returned not out of obligation, but by choice. Her intelligence was immediate - watching, testing, remembering - and over time, a bond formed that was life-altering.
Now living in the Angus glens with her husband and young son, Amy's life is shaped by the practical demands of animals, land, and weather, alongside years spent documenting and sharing the natural world. As life changes - through moves, marriage, motherhood, and loss - her bond with Fable shifts, deepens, and endures.
Of Wings and Wild Lands is a memoir celebrating the extraordinary connections between humans and animals, and the beauty of choosing a life that is untamed, authentic, and rooted in nature.