Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl

This audiobook is about the fishing owl—one of the largest owls in the world. And it’s also an audiobook by an American writer about Russia. The feathered giant makes its home in pristine forests near waters rich in fish—conditions that can still be found in Russia’s Primorsky Krai in the Far East.

That’s why, precisely here, an encounter took place: young ornithologist Jonathan Slat met a mysterious and rare bird—the fishing owl—an encounter that changed the scientist’s life.

Together with Russian colleagues, Slat sets out to find fishing owls with the goal of developing a plan to save an endangered species. They’ll face freezing nights with duty shifts in tents, insane snowmobile races across thawing river ice, hopes and luck, annoying mistakes. The book’s main heroes are the fishing owls: nimble hunters, devoted parents, performers of mesmerizing duets—they’re impossible not to love along with the author. There are also “secondary” characters—people accustomed to surviving in harsh conditions of the taiga forests.

Much in Russia is unfamiliar to an American, and that gives the stories about field researchers’ everyday life and about the (often overly) hospitable residents of Primorsky Krai a special flavor. Dramatic and lyrical scenes, sharp and ironic observations—everything in the narrative is subordinated to the idea of the beauty and vulnerability of the wild world.