![]() Backlit by the hazy gray of a winter sky, it seemed almost too big and too comical to be a real bird, as if someone had hastily glued fistfuls of feathers to a yearling bear, then propped the dazed beast in the tree. It was clearly an owl, but bigger than any I’d seen, about the size of an eagle but fluffier and more portly, with enormous ear tufts. The Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) is a species of eagle-owl that resides in much of Eurasia.It is one of the largest species of owl, with males, which are slightly smaller than females, weighing from 1.2 to 3. The true story of field scientist and conservationist Slaghts five year quest to track the Blakistons fish owl, one of the most elusive birds in Russia. We were uncertain at first which bird, actually, we’d come across. “This disheveled mass of wood-chip brown regarded us warily with electric-yellow eyes. On a hike in 2000, when he was stationed with the Peace Corps in Russia’s Far East, he “unexpectedly flushed an enormous and panicked bird.” His description of the eventual object of his obsession alerts us that this is no ordinary owl, and Mr. Jonathan Slaght’s first encounter with Blakiston’s fish owl, the rare salmon-eating raptor that would become the focus of his doctoral thesis and this book, was accidental. ![]() Jonathan Slaght with a Blakiston’s fish owl. ![]()
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