🦉

Why does the snowy owl stay in the Arctic even in the most severe frost?

Among all the owls in the world, there is one special one - white as snow, with yellow eyes. This is the snowy owl. It is not like its relatives who live in the forests: they hide during the day and hunt at night. And the snowy owl hunts during the day! Why is that?

The answer is in its home, the Arctic. In the summer, the sun never sets there, and night doesn't come for months. If the owl waited for darkness, it would starve to death. So it learned to see its prey in bright light.

And the Arctic owl is one of the few birds that does not fly south in winter. Imagine: -50°C, a blizzard, the polar night lasts for six months. And the owl sits on the snow and feels great. How does it do it? Its feathers are the thickest of all birds on the planet! It even covers its paws and beak - no one else in nature has a beak covered with down. An adult female weighs up to 3 kilograms - it is the heaviest owl in the world.

The main food of the Arctic owl is lemmings. In one year, it can eat 1600 of these little animals! And when there are few lemmings, it even catches hares and ducks. Its hearing is so sharp that it can hear a lemming under a 30-centimeter layer of snow!

Interestingly, the female is white with dark spots, while the old males are almost pure white. There can be up to 11 chicks in a family - more than any other owl.

When you see this beauty in the photo, remember: she is the silent guardian of the icy desert. The one whom the cold does not scare, but only makes stronger.