SCIENTIST and author Stacey O'Brien met Wesley when he was four days old.
The ball of white fluff began life with the barn owl research team at the famous Caltech, the California Institute of Technology, but nerve damage to his wing meant he would never make it in the wild and needed a human carer.
- Wesley: the Story of a Remarkable Owl, by Stacey O'Brien. Bantam, rrp $24.95
O'Brien took him home and for 18 years the pair were inseparable best friends.
This book tells of O'Brien's life with Wesley, a barn owl full of personality, affection and intelligence, with the beautiful, distinctive heart-shaped face that marks these gentle creatures.
If you're in the camp that thinks animal stories are for the wimpy, or that it would take at the very least a dog-human relationship to get some reaction from a reader, think again.
This charming story, with accompanying photos, paints the picture of a remarkable species with a complex emotional life and the ability to bond with and love a human.
The barn owl has been known, on the death of a mate, to "turn his head to face the tree on which he's sitting and stare fixedly in a deep depression until he dies".
Barn owls have many tiny facial muscles and can make facial expressions to communicate, much like humans.
O'Brien could never leave a cup of coffee lying around as a caffeine jolt can cause heart attacks in birds.
Wesley gets up to mischief, finds his way in his human world and endears many people to him. But this is the story of O'Brien's evolution, emotions and love as much it is Wesley's.
Yes, there's a touching and tear-jerking end, but this book affirms O'Brien's belief that living with animals - the joy and the inevitable grief - is "all worth it".
