“Out on the fringe of the vast western plains a pair of wedge-tailed eagles had built their eyrie high in the branches of a massive desert oak. It was over thirty feet above the ground, a large structure of sticks lined with leaves, which had braved the desert winds and dust storms for many years.”
We live on a wooded lot, and birds are plentiful. I have always loved these beautiful specimens of God’s creation. So, naturally, I reached for some of the birds first when choosing books from C. K. Thompson’s Australian Nature Stories series. Maggie the Magnificent, an Australian Magpie, was the first I read. I loved it. I read one about a dingo next, Warrigal the Warrior. And then Monarch of the Western Skies. Apparently, and this is unlike me, I prefer predators. Warrigal the Warrior was awesome. And this one, Monarch of the Western Skies, was just as good.
This is the story of a wedge-tailed eagle. It follows an eaglet, Wedge-Tail, from his birth on a tall desert eyrie until he is around middle-aged, when he becomes the “Monarch of the Western Skies.” On the back cover of Warrigal the Warrior Thompson says, “I have not sought to glorify Warrigal, neither have I condemned him. I have just tried to present him as he really is, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.” I think this applies to Wedge-Tail as well. Thompson does a beautiful job telling Wedge-Tail’s story from both the eagle’s perspective as well as some humans.
One minor caution, Wedge-Tail is a predator, and in nearly every chapter something dies – rabbits, kangaroos, dingoes, chickens, lambs, other birds, basically anything Wedge-Tail can get his talons on.
This book was out of print until 2017 when Living Book Press brought it back. They have also published many others in this series, including Maggie the Magnificent, Thunderbolt the Falcon, Warrigal the Warrior, and Willy Wagtail.
As I said in my review of Archimedes and the Door of Science, I do not care for math and science, but I found this book fascinating and engaging. I felt I really knew Wedge-Tail and other birds of his kind.