
A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'A beautiful book; wise & sharp-eared as its subject'
- Robert Macfarlane' Her softness took my breath away Deadly beauty She turned her face towards me There is a narrow area that falls between pleasing & preposterous & this owl's circular face & bright yellow eyes fitted into it with perfect grace' Owls have captivated the human imagination for millennia We have fixated on this night hunter as predator messenger emblem of wisdom or portent of doom In Owl Sense Miriam Darlington sets out to tell a new story Her fieldwork begins with wild encounters in the British Isles on the owl walks she takes with her teenage son Benji From here Darlington seeks to identify every European species of this charismatic & elusive bird on a journey that will take her from southern Spain through France Serbia & Finland & to the frosted borders of the Arctic Along the way however Benji succumbs to a mysterious & disabling illness & her owl quest soon becomes entangled with the search for his cure Owl Sense is a book about the wild in nature & in the unpredictable course of our human lives In her watching & deep listening to owls in the natural world Darlington cleaves myth from reality & brings the strangeness & magnificence of these creatures to life