Sharing her love for God’s creation

By Christine Bordelon
Clarion Herald

Introducing children and adults alike to a variety of birds has been the main goal of Wind in My Feathers, which provides presentations to schools, camps, conventions, festivals, private parties and even Scout groups.


Owner Sally Farrell, who is a Catholic convert, said a friend first recommended that she volunteer at the zoo.

“It totally changed my life,” she said. “Not only did I get a love for birds, but also for the environment and all of God’s creation. It’s all connected.”

Farrell spent 15 years at the Wildbird Rehabilitation Center of the New Orleans Audubon Zoo as a raptor rehabilitator and educator with state and federal permits for New Orleans and the surrounding area. She also rehabbed some of the birds at her house.

“Birds of prey are the barometers of our environment,” Farrell said. “I want to show people the beauty of birds and to help them appreciate them. We help people realize that conservation is not just out in the rainforest – it’s here, too.”


Through her nonprofit Wind in My Feathers, started in 2005, Farrell gives 45- to 60-minute presentations of live, non-releasable raptors with accompanying lecture, supplemented with visual aids such as photography, taped bird calls, owl castings, feather displays, skulls and owl feet.

A question-and-answer period follows the talk. In advance of her visit, she makes available a learning guide and suggests children’s activity books and a website to visit.

A Catholic convert
Farrell said she became Catholic after one of her birds, a great horned owl named Hibou, had gotten loose and started living in Audubon Park. She couldn’t find the owl until a fellow zoo keeper who attended a Mass heard the celebrant mention that a bird had landed on his head.

The zoo keeper said she knew who owned the bird, and told Farrell about the incident. Farrell then met the priest, who lived on Loyola University New Orleans’ campus across from Audubon Zoo, and hatched a plan where the priest stood on Loyola’s horseshoe, waiting for the bird.     

Farrell gave him a glove, and the bird landed. She knew it was divine intervention.

“I then had this drive to go to Mass every day,” she said, adding how God does things for people. “The Lord opened my mind and the Holy Spirit for the Bible.”


She seems to attract birds, as well. Just last year, a cardinal started following her at home.

“I named him Francis after St. Francis, and his mate as Francine,” Farrell said.

Farrell has talks available on the Western Great Horned Owl of North America; the Tawny Owl; a gray Barred Owl; an Eastern Screech Owl; Red-Tailed Hawk; Mississippi Kite; American Kestrel; Spectacled Owl; Mottled Owl; Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture; the Pharaoh Eagle Owl; and the Gyr-Saker Falcon, the largest falcon Arctic bird from North America, Asia and Europe.

“They are my kids,” she said of her birds. “They are the most important things in my life. I never go on vacation to care for them.”  She brings all the birds in in severe and cold weather. “They are my life, and I love them.”

To book a talk, visit www.windinmyfeathers.org.

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