Schuhschnabel

When I was a kid I loved penguins. Then while in undergrad at Bryn Mawr I started to love owls, which I have collected ever since…

Not much is more amazing to me than an owl in flight

A few of my owls

…but it was on a trip to the Zurich Zoo when I was living for a few months in Switzerland writing up my dissertation that I fell in love with the shoebill (even better, "Schuhschnabel" in German). I am pretty sure that the shoebill in Zurich stared into my soul: