Polar owl | Facts & Information

Origin

Classified and named in 1758 by the great scientist Carl Linnaeus himself, the bird has long been known by the northern populations, who gave it their own names. Today they range from the Snow Owl to the Tundra Ghost, The Ookpik, the Scandinavian Night Bird to the Northern White Terror.

It's hard to understand at first glance why a bird could acquire such fear and respect.

The polar owl is found throughout the northern part of the planet: Alaska, Russia, Scandinavian countries, northern China, northern British archipelago, etc.It is even the bird that symbolizes Quebec.

Synonyms: Strix scandiaca (Linnaeus, 1758), Nyctea scandiaca (Stephens, 1826).

Feeding The Polar Owl

Snow owls are carnivores. They hunt using a place at a height that gives them good visibility while waiting for their potential prey to appear in the hunting area. Visual scanning of the hunting area is facilitated by their ability to rotate their heads up to 270 degrees.

Unlike other relatives, it is active during the day, when it spends most of its time hunting. The cold climate and large size demand a high protein intake, so the food must be consistent and in large quantity. Mainly, this species depends on lemmings (a very common species of small rodent) to provide its food.

But it will attack if it has the opportunity almost anything; its food contains: geese, ducks, songbirds, fish (which it fishes directly from the surface of the water), rabbits, raccoons, mice, marmots, moles, squirrels and practically anything else it can catch and shoot down.

It attacks on the fly after lurking prey, which has virtually no chance in front of the sharp claws and beak that can easily tear the flesh. It should be noted that smaller owls often attack. A statistic shows that an adult specimen feeds on about 1600 lemmings per year.

The owl consumes the small leeks whole, and from the larger ones snatches large pieces of meat that it swallows without shredding them. They often ambush traps set by humans for other large predators and steal the bait, which is quite irritating to hunters. But it is precisely this adaptive power that has brought success to the species, a true survivor. No wonder this intelligent bird manages to live almost 10 years in the harsh wild, but up to 35 in captivity, where it does not have to shy away from anything.

The snow owl is a calculating and persevering Hunter who will wait to identify his prey before pouncing on it to achieve his goals. Snow Owls have a keen eye and a sharp hearing, which helps them discover their invisible prey in the thickets of vegetation or under a blanket of snow. Having identified it, polar Owls grab their prey with the help of their sharp claws.

Snow owls, like many other birds, swallow their prey entirely. Their powerful gastric juices digest meat, and indigestible bones, teeth, fur and feathers are compacted into oval pellets that the bird regurgitates 18-24 hours after feeding. When the owl consumes a larger prey, piece by piece, those pellets are no longer produced.

Features Polar Owl

Although it has quite large dimensions for a fly: body length up to 71 centimeters and wingspan over one and a half meters, it does not seem to pose a threat, rarely exceeding three kilograms in weight. But this bird is an extremely efficient predator, being among the few species of birds of prey outside the danger of extinction, but also a parent who will ferociously defend his nest.

Visually, it is a species difficult to ignore, having a specific appearance: white or variegated plumage extremely often, this being combined with a fat coating to protect the bird against the cold; the eyes are intense yellow and relatively large relative to the size of the skull, in order to see the prey, which is usually camouflaged well. Long wings, in addition to flying, help regulate temperature, which is very important when large changes occur.

Snow owls are the largest birds in the Arctic, about 53-73 cm long and with a maximum wingspan of 170 (125-150) cm. Females are larger and more full-bodied than males, weighing about 1550-1600 g, compared to males weighing about 1450-1500 g. polar owl specimens have been discovered in the wild that have reached body weights of up to 3 kg.

Snow owls are predominantly white with dark brown spots and Stripes. Females tend to have more markings than males, which can become almost completely white as they age.

Young snow owls are generally darker in color, and their markings are much larger and more obvious than those of adults. Snow Owls have yellow eyes, and their completely white legs and fingers are covered with white feathers that protect them from cold weather. The beak of the snow owl is black.

Polar owls are generally solitary and territorial. Males establish territories during mating periods and defend them using vocalizations and threatening positions.

The size of the territories varies according to the abundance of the prey; during the years of abundant prey, up to 5 pairs can hold territories over an area of 1.5 km2, while in the years of famine, the pairs are much more disparate. In winter, females establish territories, which they defend until spring, when they fly north.

Snow owls are migratory birds. However, migration to this species is unpredictable and is apparently linked to prey abundance rather than seasons or weather. In general, snow owls are nomadic, moving from place to place, and mate when and where Prey is abundant.

About once every four years, many snow Owls enter the northern United States during the winter, probably because their prey is in short supply in more northern regions.

Breeding Polar Owl

Although in general the specimens are lonely, during the mating period they form stable pairs that take care of the growth of the later offspring. The male usually conquers the female by bringing her prey that he has just caught and even feeding her.

The two will then feed each other while alternating in brooding. They generally do not make a nest, but prefer one abandoned by an eagle or other larger bird; if they have to, they make one directly on the ground.

After hatching, the chicks will in turn be fed by both parents with pieces of the prey just caught; they are small, fluffy and of a gray color, which will change to an immaculate white plumage in males and white with black striations in females. The pair will always be extremely protective in terms of Nest safety, so anything within a kilometer radius around the nest risks being attacked, regardless of size or reasons.

This violence in reaction means that in some years almost all the young can safely reach adulthood, which is amazing for a wild species. Instinctively knowing that the polar owl does not hunt around the nest, geese nest nearby to protect their young. Thanks to this tactic, only rarely do any Cubs fall prey to their only natural enemies, foxes and Wolves.

Polar Owls thus prove to have an almost perfect survival system, being an almost ideal model of predator. By adapting to the environment, the large area it occupies, the wide range of prey it prefers, and the aggressiveness with which it protects its offspring would be hard not to succeed. And the continuous adaptation to human activities and changes in the environment only ensure that this species does not go anywhere as long as there is at least one rodent to catch, or a fish.

Only males are completely white. The Cubs are dark and mottled, while the females are white with a mottled pattern on the wings. These large owls breed in the Arctic tundra, where females lay around 3-11 eggs (the number of eggs laid depends on the availability of food). The parents are territorial and will defend their nests from all attackers – including wolves. Owl chicks, and especially males, will become whiter and whiter as they get older.

The oldest known Snow Owl has lived at least 28 years in captivity.