Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS

THE ROLLERS AND THEIR ALLIES

THE OWLS

Snowy Owl

The favorite haunts of the Snowy Owl are the immense moss- and lichen-covered tundras of the boreal regions, where it apparently leads an easy existence during the short Arctic summer. It is mainly diurnal in its habits, but like most birds it is more active in search of its prey during the early morning and again toward evening, and occasionally it may hunt at night. Its favorite attitude is a commanding position on some projecting point of rock or a knoll in the tundra, where it watches what is going on around it, now and then dropping upon some unsuspecting mouse or enjoying a more or less extended flight over the country.

It is shy and difficult of approach at all times, but especially when occupying a commanding position in the open; yet it is of gentle disposition naturally and when caught soon becomes tame in confinement. Its flight, though noiseless, is strong and often protracted, and its cry, according to Dresser, is a loud krau-krau and also rick, rick, rick.

The food of the Snowy Owl consists principally of the lemming, and it is said to be always abundant wherever this little Arctic mammal is found in numbers. Thus of its presence at Point Barrow, Alaska, Murdoch says: “During the season of 1882 we saw no lemmings, though signs of their presence in the shape of droppings, and their skulls and skeletons in the Owls' castings, were numerous all over the tundra. During that season we saw but few Owls.

On the other hand, in 1883, lemmings were exceedingly plenty all around the station, and Owls were proportionately abundant; scarcely a day passed without one or more being seen sitting on the tundra, generally on the top of a bank or small knoll, on the lookout for lemmings.”Aside from the lemmings it also feeds on Ptarmigan, Ducks, and other water fowl, and even the Arctic hare, an animal fully twice as heavy as itself, is successfully attacked and killed by it.”

This bird never seizes its prey,”says Turner,”except while the latter is in motion, except probably in the case of fish. The hares are chased and seized near the lumbar region and held by the bird, which spreads its wings and partly lifts the animal from the ground, thus depriving it of the power to use its strong hinder parts. The natives assert that when a Ptarmigan is sighted, the Owl endeavors to start the bird into a run and it is then seized.”The prey is always eaten on the spot, unless, of course, it is designed for the young.

The nest of this Owl is a very simple affair, usually placed on the ground on the highest and driest point in the surrounding tundra, but occasionally on a projecting ledge of rock. When on the ground it is a simple hollow scratched out by the birds and lined with a few grasses and feathers; when on a ledge the eggs frequently lie on the bare rock with just sufficient material to keep them from rolling off. The eggs, which are white with a faintly perceptible creamy tint, number from three to ten, perhaps the usual number being from four to six. Incubation begins as soon as the first one is laid, and young of various sizes or eggs and newly hatched young are frequently found in the same nest. A single brood is reared in the season, and, according to Turner, the old birds are very bold in defense of the nest.

 

 

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