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| Snowy Owl. Photo by Doug Lowry |
As you may have guessed from their name, snowy owls are primarily white
in color, although they do have some brown spots or markings. The males tend to
be whiter than the females. They have small golden eyes, and short sharp bills.
One of the larger owl species in North America, they measure up to 27 inches in
height, and weigh up to four pounds. That’s heavy for an owl – they need lots
of layers of feathers to keep warm in the Artic! Their wingspan ranges an
impressive 4.5 to 5.5 feet across. In the wild, snowy owls may survive up to
nine years – and considerably longer in captivity.
Snowy owls survive primarily on a diet of lemmings, a small
Arctic-dwelling mammal. They are nomadic, and generally follow the lemming
population. They also eat fish, insects, birds (ranging in size from a songbird
to a medium-sized goose!) and other small mammals such as hares and mice. Last
year the lemming population was large, and as a result, a greater-than-usual
number of young snowy owls were produced.
Snowy owls make their home in the Arctic, in the northern portions of
Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Russia. They breed in May, scraping out a hole in
the bare ground in which to nest, and often returning to same spot year after
year. If food supplies are good, a female may lay 7-11 eggs, while on a
not-so-good sustenance year, maybe 3-5. The female protects the nest while the
male gathers food. The babies begin to leave the nest after 25-26 days, however
they cannot hunt for themselves until they reach about five weeks of age, and
their flying skills don’t really mature for another 2-3 weeks beyond that.
In the fall, snowy owls begin their journey south, searching for a
place to spend the winter -- a place
that is similar to the dunes and grasslands of the Artic tundra. They prefer
wide-open, mostly-treeless coastal areas, so our larger, less-developed beaches
are prime spots for viewing them. Duxbury Beach is the best spot locally. If
you don’t mind traveling farther, Plum Island, Salisbury Beach and Newburyport
to the north are also safe bets, as are the beaches of the Cape and Islands.
They are also attracted to airports.
You probably won’t see snowy owls at Logan or any of our other local
airports, though. Owls pose an airstrike danger, and so they are routinely
removed from the premises. Norman Smith, director of the Massachusetts Audubon
Society’s Blue Hills Trailside Museum is a hero in this department. For 32
years he has been rescuing and banding snowy owls from Logan Airport, and
relocating them to Duxbury Beach and Plum Island. In a normal year, this may
involve 6-10 birds, but occasionally there are boom years and the 2013-2014
winter is definitely a boom (the technical term is “irruption”). By the end of
December, Smith had relocated 32 snowy owls to Duxbury alone.
Snowy owls typically arrive in Massachusetts toward the end of
November, and stick around for a couple of months, before heading north again.
The Bay State isn’t their only winter home: they have been spotted as far south
as Bermuda, North Carolina and Florida.
While they are here, snowy owls spend their days hunting. They have
remarkably keen vision and hearing. Most owls hunt at night, but snowys do most
of their work during the day. They look for a spot with a good view: the
rolling terrain of a sand dune is ideal, or they may tuck in behind a bush if
it’s windy. On calm days, they might choose a less-protected perch, such as a
telephone pole or a nesting platform. Generally they are quiet, unless they’re
trying to scare away a predator, in which case they may cackle. They sit a lot
– often for hours in the same spot, swiveling their heads or leaning forward to
get a good look at something. Often, once they’ve captured one, they will
swallow a rodent whole! Now that’s something I’d like to see . . .
There’s still time to try to see
the snowy owls at Duxbury Beach. While you may want a spotting scope or
binoculars for a close-up view, you won’t need any special device simply to
catch a glimpse. Please be respectful. MassAudubon suggests that people not disturb
the owls by getting too close.
Sources:
http://www.defenders.org/snowy-owl/basic-facts
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/snowy_owl/lifehistory
http://www.patriotledger.com/x919119789/Snowy-ownl-population-spikes-in-Massachusetts#sthash.EL6HKjgY.dpuf
by Kezia Bacon,
Correspondent
January 2014
Kezia Bacon's
articles appear courtesy of the North and South Rivers Watershed Association, a
local non-profit organization devoted to the preservation, restoration,
maintenance and conservation of the North and South Rivers and their watershed.
For membership information and a copy of their latest newsletter, contact NSRWA
at (781) 659-8168 or visit www.nsrwa.org. To browse 15 years of Nature (Human
and Otherwise) columns, visit http://keziabaconbernstein.blogspot.com
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