Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl
by Stacey O'Brien
[Originally posted at Goodreads]
This is an amazing love story of a barn owl and his girl. It will make you cry-- for it is so incredibly sweet and moving. Before starting this book, I didn't know a lot about owls. I never realized how intelligent they are; never realized they mate for life or what dedicated fathers the males make! If someone had told me that one could form a bond and be able to communicate with an owl as one can with a dog, for example, I might not have believed it...
The story of the owl and his girl begins when the owl is only four days old. Author Stacy O'Brien is a lab assistant working in the owl lab at Caltech when her supervisor asks her to take on the baby owl. The owl was badly injured and would have died otherwise. She is tasked to adopt it and try and learn as much as she can about this remarkable creature. And he *is* remarkable!
He thinks of her as mommy. And later as mate!!! And Stacy O'Brien is very convincing in how well Wesley the owl can communicate. Interesting to imagine an owl can understand, "in two days" or "in a few hours.."
For me, this book went beyond the amazing story of the animal. It reminded me a bit of the the TV show, Durrell's on Corfu (and the books by Gerald Durrell who also loved animals so much) in how totally uplifting the story was. Indeed, we are living in such sad times that like the famous Wendell Berry poem about the Peace of Wild Things, this story really did make me feel hopeful. Just reading it, I could feel something like the poet described of:
"For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
The author had to struggle through an illness and it was heartbreaking to imagine what she was going through--but she had these friends who would do seemingly anything for her and then this glorious owl, who adored her more than anything in the world. My favorite parts of the book, in fact, involved those quiet moments when she looked into his eyes and described the peace and quiet she felt. In fact, she said, his eyes led her to God. It is such a beautiful story of a magnificent and dignified creature and a deeply compassionate and intelligent lady.
Anyone interested in Caltech will love the tidbits about Feynman and life on campus at a time when physicists worked nude or someone could walk around in a medieval jester's costume and still command respect. She described the trolls who live down below in the labs and her descriptions of the biologists were really engaging. I loved the book and really recommend it to everyone (am buying it for Christmas gifts this year).
My favorite quote of all:
'Live your life not by staying in the shallow, safer waters, but by wading as deep into the river of life as possible, no matter how dangerous the current. We have only one chance at this life.'
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