A Brief Encounter with a Snowy Owl
I saw arctic wildness in soybean stubble. A flash of white revealed the presence of a being that was likely raising a family above a…
I saw arctic wildness in soybean stubble. A flash of white revealed the presence of a being that was likely raising a family above a glacier in the tundra a few months ago. The Snowy Owl was big, beautiful, calm, and elegant. The first thing I noticed was all of the feathers. They have more feathers than other owls and they were all blowing in the wind creating a ghostly effect. The whole bird was fluttering. Beneath the surface, she was calm and peaceful. You could see it in her big yellow eyes and the slow blinks before she closed her eyes and slept.
She is a highly refined marvel of evolution that is adapted for cold and hunting a wide variety of prey. She is one of a handful of birds that can survive the winter in the high arctic. Feathers cover every part of her body. She even has extreme eyelashes to seal out the cold from her eyes. As I watched her I kept wondering, “why is she here?” No one knows. There are few clear patterns in the data on their movements. All we can say is that they are patchily distributed across the arctic and they wander in every direction.
It is hard to estimate population sizes for a bird that nests in remote locations and shifts its locations annually based on the availability of prey. Recent estimates have revised the numbers down significantly to an estimated 14,000–28,000. They are considered vulnerable now and if current rapid downward trends in their numbers continue they may be listed as endangered.
As I was taking pictures I adjusted my camera settings to make sure I was capturing her as accurately as possible. I went too far in adding light and she faded from view. Only her eyes were visible. This seems prescient now that I think about how many of these birds have vanished. They are on the same path as most other birds. We have lost 3 billion birds in the US since the 1970’s. This is a shocking diminishment of diversity and life. If we vanquish Snowy Owls to the spirit world their eyes will always be watching us with that same calm and deliberate manner.
Love and loss, diminishment, and flourishing are all unavoidable parts of life. I am hopeful that we are reaching a turning point and that we are now on a path to nurturing more diversity in the face of all this loss.