Some of the largest and most beautiful predatory birds are making a rare visit to the Olympic Peninsula this winter.
“Snowy owls are here in pretty big numbers,” said Bob Boekelheide, director of the Dungeness River Audubon Center in Sequim.
Owls make the long trip from the Arctic to the warmer climes of Washington state every three to seven years, Boekelheide said, mostly as a result of a good feeding year in which many young owls survive to migrate south.
They first showed up on the North Olympic Peninsula in mid-November with sightings at Dungeness Spit, he said.
At least four individuals were seen on the Spit or perched on nearby buildings, Boekelheide said.
Snowy owls are sometimes seen on Ediz Hook near Coast Guard Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles at the tip of the spit, he said, adding that the largest population on the Olympic Peninsula was spotted far to the south, at Ocean Shores in Grays Harbor County, where 20 owls were counted on one beach.
One snowy owl was spotted in Jefferson County about a week ago, said Dick Johnson of Admiralty Audubon in Port Townsend.
That owl hasn’t been seen since, Johnson said.
The big owls are not particularly shy, but people should keep their distance from the well-armed predators, said Matthew Randazzo, volunteer public relations director of the Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center, a wildlife rescue nonprofit in Sequim.
“They’re unlikely to be aggressive, but they are extremely strong animals,” Randazzo said.
Birdwatchers should stay 20 or 30 yards away from the owls and use binoculars, Randazzo said.w
With a wingspan of up to 52 inches, the big raptors look heavier than they are.
An adult snowy owl weighs in at only about 4 pounds.
“They’re all feathers and hollow bones,” Boekelheide said.
Unlike better-known owls, snowy owls are diurnal — they hunt in daylight, he said.
Birdwatchers are more likely to see such owls, and their preferred perches — on top of raised hummocks and driftwood on beaches and spits — make them relatively easy to spot.
Their favored perches are very similar to locations they would choose in their Arctic tundra summer home, Boekelheide said.
Snowy owls are an “irruptive species,” meaning they undertake periodic mass migrations to areas away from their normal Arctic habitats.
These irruptions, almost always by immature birds, stem from periodic increases in the population of lemmings, the owls’ primary prey in the Arctic, and the resultant owl population’s similar explosion, he said.
Owls, which normally lay two or three eggs per year, lay as many as a dozen in irruption years, and there is a high survival rate for the young, well-fed owls.
At the end of the season, the increased number of owls causes the lemmings to all but disappear, forcing the young owls to travel far to find a winter feeding ground, he said.
In some years, there are so many they travel as far south as California, Texas and Florida to find their preferred winter diet of small birds.
The owls that travel the farthest are juveniles, many with more dark spots than white, he said.
The brightest white owls are adult males, while the largest snowy owls with light brown bars are the females.
“They all have white faces,” Boekelheide said.
In recent years, the snowy owl has become famous in literature and motion pictures as Hedwig, the feathered companion of young wizard Harry Potter, was featured as a symbol of the Harry Potter book and movie series.
Another series, The Guardians of Ga’Hoole, a children’s fantasy series about warrior owls, features two snowy owls as the king and queen of the heroic owl population.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.