SNOWY OWL

The snowy owl is the largest arctic bird. In winter it spends its time sleeping and sheltering to avoid eating because food is scarce.

The snowy owl had one of the biggest evolutions. It adapted to long periods without food. In the summer the Arctic has constant daylight and in the winter darkness. It is also well insulated to cope with the harsh weather in the Tundra. 

The plumage insulates them from very cold temperatures. They hunt at night where temperature is even lower. The plumage also prevents body heat loss and therefore they need less food. This again helps them to survive hard times when there is very little food about.

Their plumage covers them completely apart from the peak and eyes. Even the eyes are covered with long dense eye lashes. The legs are cover with long thickly feather like trousers and go all the way down to the claws. Under the close outer feather the snowy owl has a layer of fine thermal down. The feathers are hollow told warm air.

SNOWY OWL FEMALE

SNOWY OWL MALE

The male is almost pure white which serves as great camouflage. The female has some brown feather and this helps to camouflage her when she sits on her eggs.

Its main predators are the Arctic Fox. Although the fox has very rarely a chance to kill an adult because of the snowy owl size but it can snatch chicks or eggs.

BREEDING

The snow owl builds its nest on the ground but on a higher point to be able to spot any danger. Both parents are active in making the nest. They scrape out a hollow and line it with sticks and moss but very thinly.

The female is much heavier than the male. She also adds more body fat before she sits down to incubate the nest. She needs this entire extra because she will sit on the nest for about eight weeks during which she doesn’t leave or rarely the nest. Turing this time her mate will bring food.

On the Tundra the main food supply is lemmings. They survive under the snow and breed heavily when vegetation starts to grow. Since the breeding of lemmings vary from year to year it has an impact on the number of eggs and chicks the snowy owl produce.

The amazing fact is that the snowy owl starts to incubate with the first egg. If the food surplus is scarce the female stops producing eggs. Therefore the eggs could be two or up to 14.

Since the female begins to sit on the nest when the first egg is laid the chicks are then all different sizes. They feed the oldest chick first and then go down to the youngest. If the food supplies are getting less; the older chicks are to surviving. It had been seen that the female also feeds the younger chicks which died to feed them to their older brothers and sisters.

SNOWY OWLS' CHICKS

The time of incubation is finish when the young ones can leave the nest and at the time when lemmings are most numerous. This also gives the young bird a chance to learn to hunt.

At that time the snowy owl also mould and rids itself of old worn out feathers. The Arctic condition demands that the bird’s plumage is in perfect condition.

When autumn arrives and the food supplies plumage the adult owls separate. Each defending its hunting ground.  The young birds are driven away. They can travel long distance to find good hunting grounds. Some go to Canada, Russia, and Scandinavia. They also have been seen resting on icebergs. Some come as far as Britain and some come to the Shetland and feed on rabbits.

HUNTING

With a height of 60cm and their wingspan more than a metre the snowy owls can kill much bigger prey than  lemmings. It kills hares and birds up to size of black grouse. It usually sits and watches all round. When an animal or bird is careless it swoops silently down and kills it with its powerful claws. It had been observed to dive under the snow to get at its prey.

TUNDRA WILDLIFE

TUNDRA REGION WITH 
FFORDS, 
GLACIERS AND MOUNTAINS,  
KONGSFFORDEN,  SPITSBERGEN

Facts about the Tundra and what is the Tundra?

Following the forest towards the north of the planet, you will find stunned willows and birches. Further on, it is replaced by conifer and the vast treeless plains where only low vegetation survives. There are sedges, rushes, perennial herbs and dwarf woody plants, bryophytes and lichens. This is the tundra.

The ground is permanently frozen. The permafrost stops drainage of the soil and roots can't penetrate. It is frozen in winter and thaws in summer with a waterlogged surface.

Sedges and rushes grow in boggy areas. Dwarf willows and birches in well-drained areas. The mosses are protected in the winter by a cover of snow from the icy condition.

TUNDRA IN GREENLAND

TUNDRA IN ALASKA

Tundra Plants

For one or two months the sun raises high enough to melt the snow in the summer. This is the time when nature comes alive and the legendary summer carpet of flowers in the tundra comes alive. You will find in abundance forget-me-nots, blue anemones, Canadian dogwood, lupins and saxifrage. It also buzzes with life of insects breeding in pools of melting snow. There are millions of mosquitoes, midges, flies, plant-sucking weevils, mites, springtails, blowflies, dung beetles, spiders and caddisflies. The ponds and marches are full of crustacceans, aquatic insects, fish and plants.

This offers a great feast and is an invitation for birds to migrate to the tundra. They breed and rare their chicks there. It is teeming with ducks, swans, geese, plovers, sandpipers, phalaropes and other waders.

CARIBOU

Tundra Animals

After they flew south the reindeer and caribou herds moving into the tundra and have a feast on aromatic plants. Their hooves are adapted, being broad, flat and cleft, to be sure-footed on the snow and icy ground. The arctic wolves follow the reindeer and caribou herds. Their smell is 100 times more sensitive than man.

The long-tailed skua favourite meal is the lemmings. The period when the lemmings breeding plentiful; it also encourage the skuas to breed successfully. The skuas breed on the tundra and spend winters at sea.

ARCTIC WOLF

When the Arctic Wolves trying to attack the Ox calves; the herd of musk oxen stand tightly packed in a circle, with a barricade of horns outwards toward the wolves.

The large herds of caribou crossing the tundra feed on lichens which were uncovered by the melting snow. They head towards the north in the summer to calve. Males and females have antlers.

The moose coming into the tundra eating the aquatic vegetation. Usually a third of their calves are killed by wolves and other predators.

Red throated divers raise their chicks there, alongside other migrate bird. They also called loons.

It is amazing that the American porcupine sits up on a tree. Its diet is roots, berries, flowers and seeds which are plentiful in the summer.

In places where there are shrubs and dwarf trees; the Lapland buntings raise its chicks there. In the winter they join the snow buntings.

SNOWY OWL

The snowy owl's favourite prey is the lemmings which she catches at dawn and at dusk. The male is white all year round.

ARCTIC HARE

Arctic hares hop around, often on their hind legs, in their white coat. Maybe they get a better view.

Red foxes adapt to most environments - such as the Arctic tundra.

WOLVERINE

The wolverine, larger than a weasel, has been known to rob a grizzly bear's dinner. They are so vicious.

ARCTIC GROUND SQUIRREL

Finally the Arctic ground squirrel is one of not many, which hibernates. It emerges only for the short summer but foxes, wolves, eagles and grizzly bears are eaten them. The Inuit people hunting them to make warm parkas from the thick pelt.