Whereas the scientific identify of the Snowy Owl, Bubo scandiacus means that the species has a selected connection to Scandinavia, it actually has a circumpolar distribution – its breeding grounds are within the arctic tundra, and a number of the birds winter considerably additional south. It’s in such a wintering space, Internal Mongolia close to Hailar, that the images on this put up had been taken in December 2024.
These wintering areas are typically pretty flat and open, which additionally makes Snowy Owls inclined to pick out airports as wintering grounds. An comprehensible alternative, however not one – apparently, on common 22 Snowy Owls are killed annually at 55 North American airports (supply). And naturally, colliding with such a heavy owl can also be a danger for planes, which is why airports have relocation applications for the owls (sort of like witness safety applications, solely completely different).
Wintering areas want to supply some meals provide – usually small rodents, but in addition passerines, shorebirds, and carrion. The Snowy Owl might hunt at any time of the day, a attribute that photographers like me reasonably respect. They solely cease when the climate is absolutely dangerous (once more, very thoughtful of them on condition that these situations are additionally dangerous for images).
Effectively, truly, they cease more often than not, regardless of the climate is. One other paper discovered that 98% of the time, Snowy Owls are simply perching, which mainly means doing nothing.
It isn’t solely photographers who like Snowy Owls. Apparently, Higher Snow Geese nesting close to nests of Snowy Owls have larger success – presumably as a result of the owls hold away some predators of the geese.
The male is sort of pure white and will appear like a reasonably easy snowman when seen from a distance.
Grownup females are white with brown bars.
One paper particularly seems on the coloration of the species, asking “Why are Snowy Owls white and why have they developed distinct sexual coloration dimorphism?” The primary a part of the query is simple to reply – camouflage in snow-covered environments. The reply to the second half appears a bit extra speculative – for females, once more camouflage (perhaps the bars and spots blur the contours) whereas for males, it’s about standing. Solely older males are totally white, which provides them greater standing and presumably higher odds at mate choice.
Snowy Owls are the northernmost owl species of all, and accordingly, the insulation supplied by the plumage of the Snowy Owl is best than some other revealed for an avian species, reaching values just like arctic foxes (supply).
Sometimes, bigger numbers of Snowy Owls migrate additional South than common, a phenomenon that has been described within the ornithological literature for fairly a while now (The Auk has a paper from 1927 titled “The Snowy Owl Migration of 1926-27“).
Previously, meals shortage was seen as the principle motive for these irruptions, however newer analysis postulates that it’s as an alternative a consequence of fine breeding situations within the Arctic that create a big pool of winter migrants (supply). One supporting reality is that in irregular irruptions, a big majority of the migrating birds are juveniles.
One other paper additionally finds that the Snowy Owls irrupting will not be in a ravenous state and that there isn’t any relation between physique composition and the interruption depth.
Snowy Owls are categorized as Susceptible. Within the nineteenth century, a lot of the irrupting birds within the US had been shot (supply: Cornell). They had been additionally hunted by native Arctic individuals, although this has declined considerably. Different risks come from human disturbances and (in fact) international warming.
A really current paper (December 23, 2024) estimates the variety of breeding adults at 14,000 – 28,000 and signifies substantial current declines.
Lastly, in some scientific papers, mentioning the Snowy Owl appears to be a strategy to make an in any other case just about unreadable summary look barely extra interesting. Take the paper “Saved by the snowy owl: An intersectional evaluation of indigenous rights and biodiversity within the Kvalsund wind energy challenge in Norway”.
You’ll not be intrigued after studying the summary, which as an alternative of mentioning the Snowy Owl has sentences akin to “By using important discourse evaluation of the first paperwork within the course of, such because the wind energy utility, impression assessments, correspondences and the principle determination letter, the paper examines the participation and affect of indigenous and biodiversity pursuits within the final result of the wind energy utility.” I feel I favor taking images of Snowy Owls to studying such papers – regardless of the – 20 levels Celsius within the Internal Mongolian winter.
At the least eBird appears to share my fascination with the Snowy Owl: an “otherworldly lovely massive owl”.
