Rebecca O'Connor

Rebecca O'Connor

Rebecca K. O’Connor has had parrots in her home all of her life and has been training animals professionally since 1995. She has trained birds professionally at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the Toledo Zoo, the Texas State Fair, The Living Desert, Healesville Sanctuary in Australia and Zoológico Guadalajara in Mexico. Today, she consults at institutions and for individuals as well as giving lecture/workshops nationally to parrot owners. Her writing on training and behavior has appeared in Bird Times, Bird Talk and she is a frequent contributor to Good Bird Magazine.

An avid falconer for more than a decade, she currently hunts with a peregrine falcon and a Brittany spaniel during the hunting season. She has flown a variety of hawks and falcons, working with them as hunting partners, honing her training skills and expanding her ardor for the natural world. She refers to falconry as “extreme bird watching,” feeling that it gives her opportunities to witness moments in nature that many people never have the opportunity to see.

O’Connor has a B.A. as well as an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of California at Riverside . She has written 9 books including several young-adult reference books, a romance novel (“Falcon’s Return”), two books on pet birds (“A Parrot for Life” and an upcoming book on finches) and a memoir. Her falconry memoir, “Lift” will be published by Red Hen Press . Excerpts from the manuscript have been published in the Los Angeles Times magazine West, Iron Horse Literary Review, South Dakota Review and Divide. One of these excerpts was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

O’Connor admits that her life is consumed by “birds and words” and that she wouldn’t have it any other way. O’Connor hopes that her life's work will somehow help people understand their connection to animals and the earth and to relish it.

www.rebeccakoconnor.com/