From ancient Babylon and the Greek goddess Athena to Edward Lear's iThe Owl and the Pussycati from Harry Potter's Hedwig and the grandiloquent, absent-minded Wol from iWinnie the Pooh ito David Lynch's iTwin Peaksi, owls are woven into the fabric of human culture. Beautiful, silent, pitiless predators of the night, these enigmatic beings dwell throughout the world yet barely make their presence known. For people, owls are contradictory beasts, at times depicted as dignified, wise old scholars and at other times as foreboding voyeurs who see all--omens both good and evil, in turn. In this fascinating book, best-selling author and broadcaster Desmond Morris explores the natural and cultural history of one of nature's most popular winged creatures.br br Excluding Antarctica, owls are found on every land mass across the globe, and they range in size from well under a foot tall the tiny least pygmy owl to more than two feet the orange-eyed Eurasian eagle owl. As a result of their wide dist