It was 2000 and he was in Primoye during three years with the Peace Corps, teaching local children English and leading them on birdwatching trips. Existing only in the wildest reaches of Russia and Japan, Slaght’s PhD research comprised most of the scientific study of the owl ever done. They are also one of the world’s most little-known birds. It’s almost like they don’t care what anyone else thinks about it. And for me that just makes them more interesting. Seeing one on a riverbank, if a gust of wind comes past it’s almost like seeing loads of little explosions because their plumage is so dense,” he continues, interrupting himself with onomatopoeic illustrations.
“They knock branches off trees as they fly by because they’re so big. Because the fish owl, as the name would suggest, eats fish, it can be as loud and cumbersome as it likes over roaring water.Īnd it is. It defies usual owl stereotypes: no flat facial disc, no streamlined silent flight. They’re unapologetic in who they are.'īlakiston’s Fish Owl is the largest in the world – standing at a metre tall, with a two-metre wingspan and weighing five kilograms – and one of the most ungainly. 'It’s almost like they don’t care what anyone else thinks about it. Slaght’s book is about owls in the same way that Moby Dick is about a white whale: it is a quest narrative of wildly adventurous proportions. Or, as Slaght tells me, “being in a truck with a load of stinky weirdos”.
There are whole weeks when little happens but snowfall and snoring. It’s a strangely thrilling story of sleepless nights spent capturing owls and cold days subsisting on boiled sweets and determination, of rattling around in dilapidated vehicles. Owls of the Eastern Ice is, as the book’s subtitle would suggest, a hunt for an elusive creature that lead Slaght and his motley crew of Russian field assistants to endure blizzards, borderline starvation, snowmobile catastrophe, frozen river crossings, hectic helicopter rides, bizarre hermits and stomach-churning levels of ethanol consumption over four brutal winters in Primorye, “a coastal talon of land hooking into south into the belly of Northeast Asia”. It’s certainly a far cry from the events of the book. “That changed my outlook a bit,” he admits, from his home office via Skype. The Minnesotan-based ornithologist was growing weary of the endless international interviews, until he realised that this wasn’t a usual level of attention for debut authors. The book has won glowing, breathless reviews. Helen MacDonald, known for her unlikely hit H is for Hawk, said that Slaght’s quest “changed her”. And yet, Jonathan Slaght’s book, Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl is one of the most intriguing – and enrapturing – books of the year. On paper, a 300-page book detailing a four-year field study of owls sounds a little, well, niche.
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