The Ghostly Snowy Owl

As white winter recently wiped out the vista of a bleak landscape along the shores of Buzzards Bay, it becomes the season to expect and look for the arrival of the migratory snowy owl.

The ghostly image and camouflaged appearance confirms the timing of atmospheric phenomena that dominate our daily habits and perspective.

Their migration south from the realm of arctic wasteland is usually motivated by the northern absence of food supply, particularly lemmings, and is labeled as irruptive due to the snowy owl’s unpredictable pattern of appearance.

If you are interested in seeing one for yourself, the most logical location is where I have seen them before – West Island, Angelica Point, and beyond to Bird Island, to name a few.

They have a reputation of returning to the same tundra-looking landscape to perch on a fence post, hay bale, building, or telephone pole.

This gives a platform on which the owl will sit for long periods of time with a wide predatory view of the surrounding area. At this vantage point, they sit for hours blinking yellow eyes and leaning forward while swiveling their head to draw a bead on their prey.

With remarkable diurnal (day or night) vision and hearing, they descend on their prey with silent wings and deadly accuracy.

Like other predators, they are known to dive bomb intruders to their territory or coming too close to their fledglings, as illustrated, not ruling out attacks on human beings.

On the good side, the male is responsible for providing food for the nesting female, a parental benefit that continues long after hatching. His beneficial planetary reputation is from a long history of wise old mystique by a variety of owl species including the local tiny saw-whet owl.

It goes back to Greek mythology as a constant companion to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and is considered sacred.

On the limestone pages of time, the snowy owl is illustrated with other now extinct creatures on the walls of prehistoric caveman art in southern France, but recently discovered fossils date their origin some 50 million years ago. An example of inspiration and both psychological and scientific study to write home about, even to this very day, the snowy owl’s ghostly ambiance lives on as the ornithological literary phantom recently played as Harry Potter’s Hedwig. No wonder that most birdwatchers today will go out of their way for the experience and impression of a sighting.

With this in mind, I wish you well in your endeavor to share with me the appreciation of environmental awareness.

By George B. Emmons

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