The Whispering Land is an autobiographical account of the 8 months Gerald Durrell spent travelling in Argentina during the late 1950s,[1] collecting animals for his then recently founded Jersey Zoo.

In the first, Durrell travels south from Buenos Aires to the arid scrublands of Patagonia; in the second he is based at a small town in the north western province of Jujuy.

In the second part, his wife Jacquie having fallen ill and returned to England, Durrell travels alone to the tropical province of Jujuy where he stays on a ranch with a couple, making friends with other locals who help him with his collecting work.

Durrell gets the chance to travel into some nearby forested mountains for three days before returning to Buenos Aires with his collection; during this period he fails to capture some vampire bats, even though he offers his own toes as bait,[3] but he succeeds in procuring a pygmy owl.

Will Cohu of The Telegraph said that while The Whispering Land wasn't Durrell's "most entertaining book", it contained "the reassuring message that life was a kind of theatre that could be played for its comedy".