Wesley is an owl. Stacey O’Brien’s book, named after her feathered friend, is the story of her life with a barn owl as a companion. Stacey was studying animals and Wesley was an owl who was unable to live in the wild so she agreed to bring him up and live with him and record what she observed. They ended up spending nineteen years together in various homes and as Stacey had various jobs.
This is an interesting book because the author talks about how owls behave in the wild and then shows how Wesley attempts to replicate this in his human environment. There is a lot about what he eats, which is mainly mice which have been frozen, and how she keeps him stimulated. Wesley doesn’t become a tame bird but lives in a human environment on his own terms and a lot of the book is about the relationship between the two.
The book is as much about the author as it is about Wesley. She struggles to adjust to and understand her owl companion. She has to make arrangements for his well-being because he is totally dependent on her and when she falls ill she has to keep going for Wesley’s sake. The owl’s presence affects her whole life, and especially her romantic life and the message of the book is clear that keeping an owl in this way is only for the experts.
I found this book interesting although keeping a wild animal, and especially a bird, as a companion has never been something that I have particularly wanted to undertake. It was interesting to learn about owls (see my post here for another book about owls that I read recently) and to learn about Wesley’s life but be warned that the author is honest about the instincts and habits of what is a predatory species and some bits of the story may be off-putting to those of a very sensitive nature.
Anne Is Reading 