Started eating owls at about 12 (I shot it and my grandfather made me eat it). Never shot or ate another one, but milked cows, cut the grass with a horse-drawn mower on the local airport and started flying at 15. I hold a Commercial Airplane, single-engine and CFIG ratings. Always curious, my uncles gave me the nick-name, "Catsfur," because I was always asking, "What's that fur?
Been working on raptors — both nocturnal and diurnal — in Central Oregon over 50 years, also studying spiders and their kin.
My "offical" title is, "Naturalist," in my case, that's a biologist/geologist/entomologist who flunked math and chemistry. No matter what bites me, falls on me, or gets in my hair, I want to know more about it.
Been writing nature columns or over 40 year.