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

ANew York TimesNotable Book of 2020
Longlisted for the National Book Award
Winner of thePEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and the Minnesota Book Award for General Nonfiction
A Finalist for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award
Winner of the Peace Corps Worldwide Special Book Award

A Best Book of the Year: NPR,The Wall Street Journal,Smithsonian,Minneapolis Star-Tribune,The Globe and Mail,The BirdBooker Report,Geographical, Open Letter Review
Best Nature Book of the Year:The Times(London)

A terrifically exciting account of [Slaght's] time in the Russian Far East studying Blakistons fish owls, huge, shaggy-feathered, yellow-eyed, and elusive birds that hunt fish by wading in icy water . . . Even on the hottest summer days this book will transport you.
Helen Macdonald, author ofH is for Hawk, inKirkus

I saw my first Blakistons fish owl in the Russian province of Primorye, a coastal talon of land hooking south into the belly of Northeast Asia . . . No scientist had seen a Blakistons fish owl so far south in a hundred years . . .

When he was just a fledgling birdwatcher, Jonathan C. Slaght had a chance encounter with one of the most mysterious birds on Earth. Bigger than any owl he knew, it looked like a small bear with decorative feathers. He snapped a quick photo and shared it with experts. Soon he was on a five-year journey, searching for this enormous, enigmatic creature in the lush, remote forests of eastern Russia. That first sighting set his calling as a scientist.

Despite a wingspan of six feet and a height of over two feet, the Blakistons fish owl is highly elusive. They are easiest to find in winter, when their tracks mark the snowy banks of the rivers where they feed. They are also endangered. And so, as Slaght and lS1