Owl

I learned about Pablo Picasso's weird friendship with an owl in one of the first major exhibition of his in Hong Kong. In 1946, Picasso adopted a little injured animal, bandaged up its broken claw, and kept the owl until it healed, then decided to take the owl with him back to Paris. 

The famous self portrait of Picasso as an owl, his ceramics, etchings and drawings of owls, seem to depict the artist's personal relationship with owls. When it comes to the world's foremost experts on owls, Picasso pales in comparison to Jennifer Ackerman. 

Jennifer Ackerman is the author of What an Owl Knows. She tells us the birdcalls of owls, the huge number of hair cells inside owls' cochlea, the roosting sites of owls. And, believe me, she knows about owls more than any one of us. It's not just Jennifer Ackerman's knowledge on the animal that is impressive. It's her writing that is vibrant, authentic and absorbing. In the way Jennifer Ackerman describes owls' sound, a hoot is not just a hoot. Owls don't just hoot. Or so I was told. They shriek, yap, chitter, squeal, squawk, warble, and wail. Some chirrup like a cricket. Some chuckle with maniacal laughter. Some utters a strange sliding whistle, like a dropping bomb.  

Oh-oh. Owl. Owl.