The author loves owls but until fairly recently has rarely seen them. Where she lived originally in the Lake District, she often heard them but only saw one briefly in Grasmere. She left the area for a while but moved back to Grasmere a little under 10 years ago. Again owls were "singing" her to sleep. She would say that she is no expert but is a watcher. This book is about her observation of owls and other things as well as her life more generally.

While this is about owls in the Lake District in particular, there is quite a bit about owls worldwide and historically. I did learn a number of things that I had not been aware of before. I certainly wasn't aware of just how long owls had been around for! The information on owls generally was interesting though maybe not a reason for buying this book solely for that. The author's health has not been good generally and at times quite poor. Issues about aloneness, isolation and covid for example are mentioned here. While I do have enormous sympathy for the author and her health generally, I never really felt connected to that aspect of this book sadly.

As this is about the Lake District it will probably not surprise people to know that Wordsworth gets a look in here. Literature about owls, Grasmere and the Lakes more widely are part of this and that will appeal to people. The author's observations of owls (& owlets) come to this as a diary narrative quite often and I did enjoy reading about it. Much of the minutia of owls lives is here and fascinating. Her owl sightings are generally quite close to her home. It was interesting to me that the app she used to identify bird calls was often very unreliable!

For me there is some great observational natural history in this book. I think some observers might consider some parts of this to be intrusive as far as wildlife is concerned however that will always be a tricky area of observation. I guess I did feel that things found on the Internet and fed to the author interested me less than her own personal observations. Ultimately there were parts of this book that I really did find very interesting. However they were quite well buried at times and other aspects of the book didn't really grab me.

“Don’t go with so much grasping in your heart and you may be lucky. Let go of your longing and you might be lucky.”

Rarely have I felt more at home in a book, rarely have it felt so understood by a narrative.

Polly Atkin’s wonderful journey through her own experiences with (not exclusively) tawny owls created such a deep, pure connection to nature that I might never forget. I felt like a visitor in Polly’s world, in the world of the owls, the babies, the adolescents and the adults.

I love the ideas the author touches upon such as loving nature from afar, or better, giving animals the space they deserve; or, her musings on human disturbances. I love the beautiful, not necessarily scientific, heartwarming explorations of nature, but also the author’s thoughts on her own reasons for burying the owl. This book stirred something in me, more than a laughter that I simply couldn’t suppress when the owls were described as attacking humans.

One things I wish I had gotten from Polly Atkin: photos! I so desperately want to see the owls, the trees, the lakes. (Well, I now follow her on Instagram so I got that in the end.)

Thank you NetGalley, Elliott & Thompson as well as Polly Atkin for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Here is yet another cover that drew me in 100%. So beautiful. However, I found the story to be very long in its narrative. It is told very simply without much of a wow factor. I know the feeling of seeing an owl in their own habitat and it is definitely a wow factor! Even though I know the author was excited at seeing the owls she tells of in her book, that excitement just did not come across on the pages for me. I thank NetGalley and Elliot and Thompson for the advance read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson for approving my request to read an arc of this book

Nature and animals are one of my special interests, birds being one of my favourite creatures in wildlife, so I was excited to read this book when I saw the gorgeous cover.
Animals have been known to have a healing nature, even if it’s just looking after them making you also have to care for yourself, at least on a basic level, or even just being in certain animals presence can provide a balm to anxiety, depression or pain. Polly Atkin can attest to this as her story tells of when her illness brought her to her family home for a year and she saw her first glimpse of the owls that would come to mean so much.
This was a beautiful story. I also enjoyed the writing style