Alaskan Snowy Owl 3

Keep me flying around the world to visit new caches and travel with new geocachers!!  Maybe even connect with my nest mates, Snowy Owl and Snowy Owl 2 !?!

Thanks to Harry Potter’s owl, Hedwig, the snowy owl is currently enjoying a bout of Hollywood celebrity but even our cave-dwelling ancestors seem to have been entranced by its fierce ghostlike beauty, which they captured in cave paintings in Europe. The snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) is the northernmost, the heaviest, and the most distinctive owl in North America.

In summer, the snowy owl lives along the northern margins of the arctic tundra, spending much of its time perched silent and still on prominent lookouts, patiently waiting for prey. Its meal of choice during the breeding season is the lemming, which it locates either visually or by sound even in dense grass or under thick layers of snow, before swooping in on long wings to grab the small rodent in its talons. An adult owl may consume three to five lemmings a day.

The snowy owl is silent except during breeding season when the male will give a low, hollow booming sound and puff out his throat in a territorial display. Mated pairs are fiercely protective of their nest, even against wolves. The owl migrates in winter to southern Canada and the northern half of the contiguous United States.

These magnificent owls have yellow eyes, a black beak, and a blanket of feathers covering their legs and feet. Only the male is completely white.

Alaska’s heaviest owl, the Snowy Owl, is 23” long and the only species in which the sexes can be easily distinguished. Females and young owls are heavily barred, while the adult male is almost completely white. This owl has a round head (without eartufts) and yellow eyes. It has long wings.

Snowy Owls rely on both sight and hearing to locate prey, and hunt both day and night. Lemmings and voles are their primary foods, although a variety of larger prey, such as ducks, are occasionally taken. In years when prey is scarce, many Snowy Owls migrate south out of their normal range (this is called an eruption). They have been known to show up in the winter in the Lower 48 states.

Snowy Owls nest and hunt on the open tundra. They lay their eggs in a bare scrape on the ground, usually on an elevated mound. Young and eggs are particularly susceptible to predation, primarily by arctic fox.

This owl is silent except on its breeding grounds where the male gives a low, hollow booming.