The ancient sport of falconry is changing with changing Midwest winters

Stephanie Stevens has a good reason to love the bone-numbing cold of a Wisconsin winter. Every weekend, she loads up her minivan with a large green box and drives out to rural areas, usually the edges of friends’ farm fields.
After she slips on a thick leather glove, out of the box and onto her wrist hops her unconventional hunting buddy, Alexie Echo-Hawk, Echo for short: a juvenile red-tailed hawk.
“She’s intense,” Stevens says, stroking her dappled feathers lightly.