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Owls of the eastern ice : a quest to find and save the world's largest owl / Jonathan C. Slaght.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020Copyright date: ©2020Edition: First editionDescription: 348 pages, 8 pages of plates : color illustrations, maps ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780374228484
  • 0374228485
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
A village named Hell -- The first search -- Winter life in Agzu -- The quiet violence of this place -- Down the river -- Chepelev -- Here comes the water -- Riding the last ice to the coast -- Village of Samarga -- The Vladimir Goluzenko -- The sound of something ancient -- A fish owl nest -- Where the mile markers end -- The banality of road travel -- Flood -- Preparing to trap -- A near miss -- The hermit -- Stranded on the Tunsha River -- An owl in hand -- Radio silence -- The owl and the pigeon -- Leap of faith -- The currency of fish -- Enter Katkov -- Capture on the Serebryanka -- Awful devils such as us -- Katkov in exile -- The monotony of failure -- Following the fish -- California of the east -- Terney County without filter -- Blakiston's fish owl conservation.
Summary: "A young field scientist and conservationist tracks the elusive Blakiston's Fish Owl in the forbidding reaches of eastern Russia"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 598.97 S631 Available 33111010382402
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A New York Times Notable Book of 2020
Longlisted for the National Book Award
Winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and the Minnesota Book Award for General Nonfiction
A Finalist for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award
Winner of the Peace Corps Worldwide Special Book Award

A Best Book of the Year: NPR, The Wall Street Journal , Smithsonian , Minneapolis Star-Tribune , The Globe and Mail , The BirdBooker Report , Geographical, Open Letter Review
Best Nature Book of the Year: The Times (London)

"A terrifically exciting account of [Slaght's] time in the Russian Far East studying Blakiston's fish owls, huge, shaggy-feathered, yellow-eyed, and elusive birds that hunt fish by wading in icy water . . . Even on the hottest summer days this book will transport you."
-- Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk , in Kirkus

I saw my first Blakiston's fish owl in the Russian province of Primorye, a coastal talon of land hooking south into the belly of Northeast Asia . . . No scientist had seen a Blakiston's fish owl so far south in a hundred years . . .

When he was just a fledgling birdwatcher, Jonathan C. Slaght had a chance encounter with one of the most mysterious birds on Earth. Bigger than any owl he knew, it looked like a small bear with decorative feathers. He snapped a quick photo and shared it with experts. Soon he was on a five-year journey, searching for this enormous, enigmatic creature in the lush, remote forests of eastern Russia. That first sighting set his calling as a scientist.

Despite a wingspan of six feet and a height of over two feet, the Blakiston's fish owl is highly elusive. They are easiest to find in winter, when their tracks mark the snowy banks of the rivers where they feed. They are also endangered. And so, as Slaght and his devoted team set out to locate the owls, they aim to craft a conservation plan that helps ensure the species' survival. This quest sends them on all-night monitoring missions in freezing tents, mad dashes across thawing rivers, and free-climbs up rotting trees to check nests for precious eggs. They use cutting-edge tracking technology and improvise ingenious traps. And all along, they must keep watch against a run-in with a bear or an Amur tiger. At the heart of Slaght's story are the fish owls themselves: cunning hunters, devoted parents, singers of eerie duets, and survivors in a harsh and shrinking habitat.

Through this rare glimpse into the everyday life of a field scientist and conservationist, Owls of the Eastern Ice testifies to the determination and creativity essential to scientific advancement and serves as a powerful reminder of the beauty, strength, and vulnerability of the natural world.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A village named Hell -- The first search -- Winter life in Agzu -- The quiet violence of this place -- Down the river -- Chepelev -- Here comes the water -- Riding the last ice to the coast -- Village of Samarga -- The Vladimir Goluzenko -- The sound of something ancient -- A fish owl nest -- Where the mile markers end -- The banality of road travel -- Flood -- Preparing to trap -- A near miss -- The hermit -- Stranded on the Tunsha River -- An owl in hand -- Radio silence -- The owl and the pigeon -- Leap of faith -- The currency of fish -- Enter Katkov -- Capture on the Serebryanka -- Awful devils such as us -- Katkov in exile -- The monotony of failure -- Following the fish -- California of the east -- Terney County without filter -- Blakiston's fish owl conservation.

"A young field scientist and conservationist tracks the elusive Blakiston's Fish Owl in the forbidding reaches of eastern Russia"-- Provided by publisher.

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