Snowy owl

Snowy owls live in the cold, far north.

In summer they live on the tundra, where there are no trees. In winter some fly south to fields and beaches.

Snowy owls spend the summer far north of the Arctic Circle, on the tundra: wide, open land with no trees. They live in the Arctic parts of North America, Europe and Asia.

In winter some owls stay in the north, while others fly south to southern Canada and the northern United States. There they look for wide, open places that feel like home, such as fields, beaches, dunes and even airports.

The species is circumpolar. The IUCN's 2021 global assessment lists it as resident in Canada, the United States, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, with regular non-breeding visitors in places such as Iceland, the United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, China and Japan.

It favors treeless, rolling ground with a good view. Winter movements are nomadic and irregular. Cornell notes that in the northern Great Plains, New York and New England snowy owls arrive most winters, while elsewhere they are irruptive, turning up in large numbers in some years and not in others. One brood from Victoria Island in the Canadian Arctic scattered to Hudson Bay, Ontario and the far east of Russia.

A snowy owl has thick, fluffy feathers.

Feathers even cover its feet, like warm slippers. Its big yellow eyes see very well, and it hears very well too.

The snowy owl is dressed for the Arctic. Thick layers of soft feathers trap warm air close to its body, and its legs and toes are covered in feathers like fluffy boots.

In winter snowy owls choose snowy farmland, dunes and marshes, where their pale feathers blend in. Sharp eyes and ears let a snowy owl find a vole scurrying under the snow.

Cornell attributes the snowy owl's high body mass to thick feathers that insulate it from Arctic cold, and the Owl Research Institute notes thickly feathered feet. The Owl Research Institute adds that in winter the owls settle where they blend in: snow-covered farmland, dunes and marshes.

Cornell describes extraordinary vision and hearing: a hunting owl pinpoints prey such as a vole scurrying beneath the snow, then flies, or even runs, to pounce. Snowy owls sit still in one spot for hours, occasionally swiveling the head or leaning forward and blinking to look more closely. They are also among the most agile owls, able to catch small birds in flight.

The mother owl makes a nest on the ground.

She lays white eggs in a little hollow. The chicks hatch as tiny balls of white fluff. Later they walk around before they can fly.

Snowy owls nest right on the ground, on a small, dry mound where the wind blows the snow away. The female scrapes out a shallow hollow and lays her white eggs one every two or three days.

The eggs take about 32 days to hatch. The chicks are wet and blind at first, but within hours they are little white fluff balls. After about 18 to 25 days they leave the nest, then spend nearly a month walking around the tundra before they can fly.

The male chooses the territory and the female the nest site, a windswept rise that stays dry and snow-free. She scrapes a shallow bowl by pressing her body into the ground; the site may be reused for years. Clutches range from 3 to 11 white eggs, laid every two to three days; incubation takes about 32 days, and hatchlings are wet and blind, with eyes usually open by day 5.

Nestlings leave the nest at 18 to 25 days, well before they can fly, and spend nearly a month hiding and toddling around the tundra. Courtship involves an undulating display flight by the male carrying a lemming. The oldest snowy owl on record was a female at least 23 years and 10 months old.