The Wise Hours

Starred review from October 31, 2022
Nature writing and memoir make a winning mix in this lyrical survey of owl species from poet Darlington (Otter Country: In Search of the Wild Otter). Darlington had planned a yearlong exploration of “the incremental shift owls have experienced, and still are experiencing, from wildness to a kind of enforced domesticity” as a result of human actions. But early on, her 19-year-old son developed an inexplicable illness that caused seizures and threatened his education, career, and life. Darlington describes searching for a diagnosis and treatment alongside her fieldwork with the birds, which she conveys in immersive prose: “The white petals of the eyelids, with their slivers of black pressed just beneath; the pale skin of the cere—the skin around the top of the beak—fading into the nostrils,” she writes of a barn owl. There are bird facts galore—pygmy owls have a “pleasant flute-like hoot” and snowy owls have “the most densely feathered feet and toes of any owl”—and Darlington’s persistence in the face of adversity is moving (“This trip will wait for when Benji is better, and I’ll take him with me,” she writes in the epilogue). Fans of Jon Dunn’s The Glitter in the Green: In Search of Hummingbirds should check out this dazzling account.

Starred review from December 1, 2022
An invigorating dive into the world of owls. In a smooth mixture of memoir and nature writing, Darlington, author of Otter Country, does for owls what Rebecca Giggs did for whales in Fathoms. Interwoven into the discussion of Darlington's fieldwork is the story of her son's mysterious illness. Fortunately, as with the author, his encounters with owls seem to bring him immense joy, to be "infected with owlishness." Darlington's original goal was to observe all of the wild species that reside in the British Isles. She begins by discussing barn owls, sharing details of the rewarding time she spent volunteering with the Barn Owl Trust and their surveys. She describes her encounters with the rarely seen tawny owl, which has an "unsettling cry," a little owl that glared at her with "ferocious lemon-yellow eyes," and a short-eared owl that nearly landed on her head. Darlington's research took her to Serbia, Finland, Spain, and France, and the author is consistently enthusiastic about her experiences in each locale, whether reveling in the "melancholy call" of the Eurasian eagle owl or picking out the "highly vocal" call of the pygmy owl, a "tiny owl...the size of a pine cone." Darlington also warns that the owl population in Britain is in decline due to human activity, particularly the use of chemicals to treat rodent infestations and encroachment into their natural habitats. Throughout, the author's lyrical prose is captivating: "The high moorland was woven with August colour, splashed with purple heather and coconut-scented gorse....There was a stroking southerly breeze that seemed to whisper through the grasses warning of the end of the summer." Ultimately, writes Darlington, "all an owl wants is to be left in peace, to make its living, to bring up its young safely and without disturbance, to continue the bloodline. Not so different from us, really." Heartfelt, enchanting, and beautifully written.

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February 1, 2023
Darlington met a captive great grey owl at a farmer's market and was enthralled by the bird but also by what she represented as an emissary from the wild who could not only teach us how to get to know the wild but also care about it. As Darlington began exploring the world of owls, studying each of the eight species found in Great Britain, she also delved into the human-owl relationship in legend, art, and culture. Meanwhile, as she writes in matter-of-fact yet lyrical prose, she was also dealing with her son's newly developed seizure disorder. The owl species she encounters across Britain and on forays into Europe include the barn, tawny, short-eared, long-eared, little, Eurasian eagle, pygmy, and snowy owls. Darlington dissects dead owls, helps a researcher band barn-owl chicks, cares for a burrowing owl (a visitor from the U.S.), and generally immerses herself in everything owl. Vignettes of people she met on her quest, beautiful descriptions of owls and their habitats, and quotations from poems about owls make this a wonderfully informative and enjoyable book.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.