OWLS of course

Owls of the Eastern Ice:
A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl
by Jonathan C. Slaght

Confession up front: I skimmed a few of the chapters. I thought the book was great...but still...there was that certain something missing that would have made me stick close and read every page with careful attention to place and time. I don't fault the author for sticking to the facts--that was the purpose of the book, after all. He was writing about his time spent tracking down, trapping and observing the Blakiston's Fish Owl in far northeastern Russia, and he is a scientist, not a poet.

Part of my problem was that I was holding back emotion, trying not to care. As with any scientist in a vanishing world, death and destruction were all around. But the owls seemed to be doing okay--they were surviving and raising chicks, still finding a few of the large trees with splits or cavities they used for
nesting. It's possible that their world is remote and inhospitable enough that they can go on eking out their meager lives for a long time to come.

A good bit of the book dealt with the ways and means of getting to the wilderness, the strange and unusual places Mr. Slaght and his fellow researchers occupied, and the weird people they met on the way. In fact, it was almost as much about the people who studied the owls as it was the owls themselves. There was much story of eating of odd foods, drinking vodka (once opened, the bottle must be emptied. it's a rule), and strange conversations with the wayfarers on the way.

But there was enough science that I should have loved it. I don't know why I didn't.