Book Review: Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien

Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien is a fantastic and fascinating read about a woman who adopts and lives with an unreleasable captive wild owl, a barn owl, in her own apartment for 19 years. The story is charming and describes the entire life of Wesley, who Stacey took in at only a few days old. 

Her descriptions of the young owl learning to fly are adorable and easy to envision. So many parts of this story were fascinating and educational - I had no idea how emotional and communicative owls can be. 

A few scenes stick out in my mind - the first time she allowed young Wesley to kill his own mouse, but instead he cowered from it, terrified. The time she got the help of some punky teens to throw mice up to a nesting barn owl family. The descriptions of Wesley in the bath tub - despite this species of owl lacking waterproof feathers(!) and then having to subsequently blow dry him dry. The hilarious scene in which she had to recount to a group of scientists, despite her great embarrassment, about the mating behavior of Wesley - who had bonded with her as his mate... 

I deeply enjoyed learning more about this species through the intimate account of Stacey O'Brien and highly recommend this book. You can buy Wesley the Owl here or try your local library. 

A bit more about the animal that starred in this story:

The Barn Owl, Tyto alba, is a gorgeous white and golden species of owl that lives across most of the US.  These birds are nocturnal, like many owls, feeding on a diet of mostly mice and occasionally a few songbirds. They eat the mice whole and later cough up a pellet that contains an entire mouse skeleton. Barn owls don't hoot, rather they screech, chirp, click, hiss, and make other sounds.

 Owls are amazing animals with incredible hearing - they can hear the heartbeat of a mouse that isn't even moving and use that sound to locate its prey. An owl's ears are not symmetrical on their head, one is higher than the other, this allows them to triangulate on sound with incredible accuracy. 

Owls are the only bird that flies completely silently. This is a cool video that demonstrates how silently barn owls can fly compared to a hawk and a pigeon. 

Another kind of funny fact - owls actually have long legs under all of those feathers! Here is a photo (this one is a Great Horned Owl) as evidence: 

If you want to help owls and other raptors, you can volunteer at the Owl Moon Raptor Center, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Boyd's Maryland. They are looking for volunteers. Click here for more info. 

Sources:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barn_Owl/overview

https://www.owlresearchinstitute.org/owls-1