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The bells on her feet jangle as the falcon lifts off from Tim Riordan's thick leather glove. The sound quickly fades as she soars above the pond in an abandoned gravel pit on the Northwest Side, her silhouette taking graceful form, her wings light.

Then Riordan rushes the pond, waving his arms wildly and shouting, "Yah! Yah! Get out of here, yah!" to startle the half-dozen ducks floating there instantly into flight. Instinctively, the falcon dives on the pond at incredible speed, her wings now blades and her form a bullet.

First the ducks, then the falcon, disappear behind a strip of trees. In a rush, a single duck emerges from the trees and is immediately knocked out of the air by its pursuer. The falcon falls to the ground with her prey under foot.

The wings morph again — this time into thick, heavy paddles, simultaneously serving as anchors and shields, to make escape impossible and to mask the kill from any other predator lurking nearby.

Riordan beams as he runs toward the site. "Did she get one? Wow, I didn't even see it," he says.

He pulls the bird off the duck, tucking her prize into a pouch on his back before pulling out a piece of duck meat from a kill the night before to reward his hunter.

"Here you go, Mystique," he says. "Good catch."

Mystique, a female peregrine falcon, has been with master falconer Tim Riordan since weeks after her birth four years ago. Along with a 3-year-old male, Little Johnny, Riordan enjoys a relationship with the animals that he surmises few experience.

"I need that kind of involvement with nature and all things wild to be happy," said the 52-year-old Vail resident. "It's something that I thrive on."

Growing up in New Mexico, a 10-year-old Riordan was captivated when he saw another kid walking down the street with a red-tailed hawk. Within a year, the boy helped Riordan and another friend get their first bird of prey, a kestrel. He has participated ever since.

Becoming a falconer is no small commitment. State and federal falconry regulations govern the sport. Aside from hours of study, a permit is required, tests must be passed and age requirements met. Beginners must also have a master falconer — the highest level of permit — sponsor them for two years as an apprentice.

Mastery takes a minimum of seven years' experience and allows the falconer to own up to three birds, including peregrine falcons.

"When I was younger, I used to want to catch as much as I could," Riordan said of the hunting aspect of falconry. "Now, falconry is not about going out and killing things. It's about watching the birds do the incredible things that they can do."

Owners of birds of prey holding a falconry license in the United States must actively pursue the sport, which requires using the birds to hunt. Educational permits have different requirements.

The prey varies by the hunter. Prey for hawks includes rabbits, squirrels and rats. Peregrine falcons hunt only other birds, which for Riordan's birds are typically ducks. While falconers are allowed to keep game for their own table, Riordan prefers to freeze what his birds catch to use as food for them throughout the year.

The peregrine was one of the first animals to be put on the federal endangered species list and was a poster child for the act throughout the 1980s. It was removed from the list in August 1999 after making a full recovery. In large part due to falconers, Riordan said, peregrines not only came back but flourished in unprecedented numbers.

Riordan became one of the first falconers in 30 years to be permitted to take one from the wild.

Mystique was about 24 days old when Riordan found her in a nest high on a cliff. He meant to get a male, but the baby, called an eyas, was too young to be sexed properly. Three years ago, he fulfilled a promise to himself to name his first male after a close friend who introduced him to peregrine falcons before dying of cancer in 2000. Riordan left a note in a small capsule buried within the nest in memory of his friend, whose mother called him Little Johnny up until the day he died, even though he stood 6 feet 7 inches tall.

The feathered Little Johnny was at least three weeks older than Mystique when he was taken from the wild, and Riordan says there is a clear difference with the "imprinting" of each bird.

"He 100 percent knows he's a bird," he said. "He could fly away right now and he would go straight into the wild and breed."

With Mystique, there is what Riordan calls a "dual imprint," where she thinks she's at least part human. "She looks to me as more of a mate than anything else," Riordan said. And while peregrines tend to be calm to begin with, Mystique is far tamer than Johnny.

Even her name reflects her character.

When he first started flying her, Riordan recalls, he told his wife, Lori, about how special the peregrine was. "I kept saying that there is this aura about her that I couldn't quite name," he said. His son Timothy, now 14, was watching the movie "X-Men" at the time, and when the character bearing the same name came on screen, it clicked. "I said 'That's it! There's a certain "mystique" about her.' "

Riordan realizes that capturing birds of prey and using them to hunt might rub some people the wrong way. He hopes that will not get in the way of the sport continuing.

"There are only a few thousand falconers in the whole country," he said. "We have no impact on the bird populations — that's been proven. Someone with a shotgun will kill more quail in a few days than I will in a whole season with my birds; certainly more ducks."

The draw to the sport is a powerful one.

"It's almost like falconry selects you," he said. "There are a few of us that yearn for that intimate relationship with these birds and with nature."

According to Scott Wilbor, conservation biologist with the Tucson Audubon Society, falconry has not been a hot issue with the organization. "If conservatively managed, I don't believe it has an impact," he said. "Personally, I'm satisfied that Arizona Department of Game and Fish does that."

While Riordan does not hold a formal degree of study regarding birds of prey, he maintains he knows as much as anyone about falcons. Last Monday, he was announced as the newly elected president of the Arizona Falconers' Association. He is attending his first event in that role this weekend at the Desert Hawking Classic, held in Camp Verde. While there, he hopes he can begin to make a contribution to the sport he loves through his own experiences.

"There are biologists that have studied these birds that can tell you the exact dimension of peregrine egg. I can't do that," he said.

"I can't tell you all of the biological facts, but I know what a peregrine smells like. They're what I do. They're my heartbeat."

To follow Riordon and Mystique on a hunt, check out the video online at go.azstarnet .com/falcon. See a slide show at azstar net.com/slideshows.