THE SECRET LIFE OF EUROPE’S OWLS

Faber 352pp £15.99 The Week Bookshop £13.99

Anyone who has ever spotted an owl in the wild will know the “curious sense of privilege that comes with it”, said James Jackson in The Times. It’s a feeling that poet Miriam Darlington – author of the much-loved Otter Country – beautifully articulates in her captivating new book. Prompted by the recent “cuteification” of the owl’s image (“something not helped by Harry Potter”), Darlington sets out to reclaim its “wild side”, going in search of all 13 species native to Europe, from the tawny and barn owl to the eagle owl in Finland and the long-eared owl (above) in Serbia. Yet Owl Sense is more than just an ornithological enquiry. Alongside Darlington’s quest for owl sightings runs a more “personal” narrative about her son Benji, then 19, who starts to suffer from mysterious and debilitating seizures. Her updates on his condition provide an “extra thread to pull the reader along”.

Almost without noticing it, you learn a great deal about owls from this book, said John Carey in The Sunday Times. For instance, that they have “asymmetric” ears enabling them to “triangulate and pinpoint the least sound”; that their wing feathers have “super-soft, comb-like” edges, which are responsible for their “terrifyingly silent” flight; and that they have additional vertebrae, allowing them to rotate their heads up to 270 degrees. Darlington has certainly done her research, and she writes about owls “superbly well”, said Rachel Cooke in The Observer. What a pity, then, that her book contains so much padding. She “tells us everything, whether pertinent or not: her latest dream, her feelings about Brexit, her conversation with the man sitting next to her on the plane to Belgrade”. Sometimes, I just wanted her to “quieten down a little” – the better to make more room for her subject’s silent “majesty”.