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Snowy Owl is one of the most popular owl species, mainly due to its beautiful white – coloured feathers. Recently, it also became famous due to the movie series Harry Potter, but only a few people really know that Hedvika was male. Snowy Owl is probably the only owl in the world with the sexual dimorphism in the color – while the male is clearly white with infrequent dark spots, female has black ripples and stains on the body. Chicks in the first plumage are black.
Snowy Owls live in the circumpolar areas of Eurasia, North America and Greenland and very rarely occur in the moderate climatic belt. Overall estimation of the world population is only about 200 thousand specimens and so the species is listed as Vulnerable with decreasing population trend.
They mainly inhabit the opened tundra where they hunt on the smaller species of vertebrates. One of the most important prey is lemmings. Snowy Owls are strongly dependent on their population so they copy their population cycles within the year. On the other hand, they can also feed on other rodent species as well such as hares, ptarmigans, ducks, lesser geese, fish or invertebrates. Unlike the other owl species, they are also active during the day. They usually nest in the hummock ground and amount of the successfully bred chicks may oscillate from 3 to 12 up to the prey availability within a given year.
