A review by arwenundomiel03
The Secret Life of the Owl by John Lewis-Stempel

informative fast-paced

5.0

I listened to the audiobook version of this book, and was utterly enchanted. I have always adored owls - finding them wonderful, beautiful and graceful creatures - with charming, definitely wise looking features (although, of course, they aren’t actually particularly wise - their eyeballs taking up the majority of the space in their skulls, and as John Lewis-Stempel says in the book - being significantly less intelligent than crows and other corvids). I have come to learn through listening to this book however, that there is a great deal more to these wonderful birds than I previously knew: from their folk law status as bringers of death and doom (due to their nocturnal behaviour), to the fact that the eggs of owls have (largely, I believe) never evolved any pigmentation, due to their owl’s continual use of a variety of naturally occurring holes to ‘create’ their nests, which has meant that they have never needed camouflage, nor identification markers. (Lewis-Stempel, J. 2018) 

If you have any interest in these magical birds at all - be it that you simply find them pretty, or you are in fact an ornithologist - this book is a must read! You will fall in love with them many times over, and lament the fact that so often human activities are at the detriment to these fabulous creatures.