Dr. Jonathan Slaght, the Minnesota author who recently published the Times Nature Book of the Year, Owls of the Eastern Ice, followed up on the tales of his adventure with this photo of him standing in typhoon damage to owl habitat. In the February MRVAC program, Slaght took us on his adventure – part of his Ph.D. dissertation fieldwork – into the Siberian winter to find, study, and hopefully save the world’s largest and most elusive owl. Typhoon Lionrock, mentioned at the end of his owl book, devastated large swaths of fish owl habitat in 2016. Fish owls must have large trees with cavities for nesting. In 2018, Slaght went with Rada Surmach to try to find the nest tree of the pair that lives in that area. The old nest tree had been knocked down and eventually they did find the owls’ new nest tree. Surmach’s photo show some of the devastation that spread over the whole river valley home to the nesting pair. Because of media ownership issues, we’re not able to post a link to the recording on MRVAC.org. However, if you’re interested in seeing the recording, send a message with a request for the link to Steve Weston, sweston2@comcast.net.