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Scientific
name:
Nyctea scandiaca |
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Family name:
Strigidae |
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Are they endangered? No,
they are not endangered worldwide. [IUCN Red list:
Least concern] |
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What are their past/present problems?
Their enemies are wolves and Arctic foxes. |
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What do they look like?
Male Snowy Owls are almost entirely white. Females have
some black spots on them but are mostly white. They
have yellow eyes and black
beaks. |
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How big are they?
They are about 2 feet long. If they stretched out their
wings as far as they could, they would be about 5 feet
wide. |
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How many eggs do they lay?
Females lay from 0 to 11 white eggs once a year. The
eggs hatch in one month.
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How long do the
fledglings stay in the nest?
They build their nest in any small indentation on the
ground. They only put a small amount of things like
grass to line their nests. The young owls [owlets] stay
in the nest for 3 weeks. |
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When do they hunt?
They
hunt at night and during the day. [nocturnal and
diurnal] The
areas in which they live sometimes have light night and day.
Sometimes they have darkness during the night and day, too. |
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What do they eat?
They like to eat voles [a cousin to ] and lemmings [like
]. They will sometimes eat other things like fish and
other birds. |
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Where do they live? They
live in Scandinavia, China, The United States, Canada, the
United Kingdom, and Korea. |
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What kind of place do
they like to live in? They
live on tundra areas which are grassy plains that don’t have
trees. |
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Interesting facts:
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They are “fast and fierce enough to knock a grown man to
the ground.” [Warren] |
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Hedwig, Harry Potter’s owl, is a Snowy Owl. His owl is
a female but, in the movies, they use male owls because
they are totally white. |
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They will fly south if they can’t get enough prey. They
will also lay fewer eggs if they are hungry. |
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They grab prey with their feet and talons. |
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Works Cited:
Abramson,
Marcia. “The magic of snowy owls.” Detroit Free Press.
11/14/2005.
Alsop,
Fred. Birds of North America. New York: DK Publishing,
2001.
De Volder, Linda. “Re: Picture Donation.” E-Mail to Club
Web. 8 Feb. 2008.
Miller,
Claire. “Snowy owls: Super owls.” Ranger Rick. 1/1999.
Nyctea
scandiaca.
4 Feb. 2008. <http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/48541/all>
Snowy owl.
Encyclopedia of Animals. 2006.
Snowy
Owl.
4 Oct. 2007. <http://www.peregrinefund.org/Explore_Raptors/owls/snowyowl.html>.
Vanner,
Michael. Field guide to the birds of North America.
United Kingdom: Parragon, 2006.
Warren,
Lynn. “Snowy owls.” National Geographic. Dec. 2002.
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