Heinrich B. One Man's Owl

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. — 246 p. — ISBN: 0-691-08470-X.One Man's Owl invites the reader to share in the experience of watching a great horned owl — not great horned owls in general but the particular "sorry, sorry-looking bundle of misery" that Bernd Heinrich adopted during a late spring snow when it was too young to fly or survive by itself.
Combining reflections on natural history with a journal of the owl's development, the book is an engaging chronicle of how the author and "Bubo" came to know one another over three summers spent in the Maine woods, and of how Bubo eventually grew into an independent hunter — and a personality that was "sometimes a clown, sometimes a terrorist."
It also provides a description of what it is like to do science, and to watch and record the behavior of a semi-tame animal, a task that IS easier than trying to observe a shy wild owl that lives in the dense forest. Finally, It is a series of thoughts on our relationship with the natural world and on its value to us. Knowing a creature intimately is the ultimate basis for the emotional force needed to want to conserve it, believes Professor Heinrich: "Any one species is a link to my life and to all of life that has ever been." One Man’s Owl, including the author's own drawings and photographs, makes a strong case for conservation of our natural environment.
Professor Heinrich watched Bubo with open-ended questions in mind, particularly in relation to the hunting skill of owls and the "mobbing" of the owl by other birds.
One would think that smaller birds would flee at the sight of an owl, but in fact many actually call attention to themselves by seemingly aggressive behavior While not intended as a scientific treatise, this work includes the author's speculations on why mobbing birds remain unscathed by the
owl, which is primarily a stealth predator and which does not seem interested in attacking birds that are aware of its presence.