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. They are easiest to find in winter, when their tracks mark the snowy banks of the rivers where they feed. Despite a wingspan of six feet and a height of over two feet, the Blakiston's fish owl is highly elusive. That first sighting set his calling as a scientist. Soon he was on a five-year journey, searching for this enormous, enigmatic creature in the lush, remote forests of eastern Russia. He snapped a quick photo and shared it with experts. Bigger than any owl he knew, it looked like a small bear with decorative feathers. Slaght had a chance encounter with one of the most mysterious birds on Earth. New York Times Bestsellers eBooks & AudiobooksĪ field scientist and conservationist tracks the elusive Blakiston's Fish Owl in the forbidding reaches of eastern Russia When he was just a fledgling birdwatcher, Jonathan C.Spring Contemporary & Fantasy Romance Collection.Spring Contemporary Mysteries & Thrillers.Spring Fantasy & Science Fiction Collection.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.

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.

The owls of the eastern ice