Snowy owl

• Status: Threatened
• Arctic tundra of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and northern Eurasia

Numbers

Weight

4,4 lbfrom 3.5 to 6.6 lb

Length

25 infrom 20 to 28 in

Lifespan

10 yearsin the wild; up to 25 to 30 years in captivity

Call range

2 mimaybe up to 6 or 7 miles in the thin Arctic air

Eggs per clutch

16 eggsaverage of 7 to 9, extreme cases of 15 to 16

Winter displacement

616 miaverage measured on wintering birds on the Kola Peninsula

Ten fun facts

1. 01

   until 2002 it belonged to its own genus, Nyctea, but a chromosome study placed it near the large owls of the genus Bubo.

2. 02

   it is the official bird of the Canadian province of Quebec and one of the most recognizable symbols of the far North.

3. 03

   Hedwig, the bird from Harry Potter, is called an owl in the films but is actually a female of this species.

4. 04

   its ear tufts are only about one inch long with roughly ten feathers, so they almost always remain hidden from view.

5. 05

   adults may produce up to fifteen different calls, ranging from a barking rhythm to the high-pitched notes of females.

6. 06

   the wild longevity record belongs to a bird banded in Massachusetts and found dead in Montana twenty-three years later.

7. 07

   in captivity it can live for more than twenty-five years, whereas in the wild its typical lifespan is around ten.

8. 08

   its breeding range spans over four million square miles, but only about five hundred thousand square miles are used regularly.

9. 09

   on the American Great Plains, eighty-six percent of wintering birds found dead had died from trauma, often car collisions.

10. 10

    during the last ice age it reached as far south as the Balkans and Italy, as proven by fossils in Bulgaria.

The quiz answers

The first one is the question printed in your book: here is the answer. The other four are extra.

Try it yourself

Data from Wikidata (Q170177) and Wikipedia (Snowy owl).