The Snowy Owl

The Snowy Owl - possibly the world's sexiest bird - needs littleintroduction. This massive white owl breeds throughout the Arctic,wherever there are voles or lemmings to hunt, from Scandinavia throughnorthern Russia to Canada and Greenland. Southerly movements in wintersee North American birds travel as far south as the northern UnitedStates, while infrequent vagrants on the Shetlands and other northernisles are a magnet for birders. The Snowy Owl gives this popular bird the full Poyser treatment, withsections on morphology, distribution, palaeontology and evolution,habitat, breeding, diet, population dynamics, movements, interspecificrelationships and conservation, supported by some fabulous photography.A major strength is the availability to the authors of Russianliterature, which is generally out of reach for Western scientists.

Raptor specialist Eugene Potapov and Arctic expert Richard Sale form a talented and experienced authorship team that has written some superb books for Christopher Helm. Their first Poyser title, The Gyrfalcon (2005), was the winner of The Wildlife Society's 'Best Science Book 2006' award; Richard Sale's most recent work, A Complete Guide to Arctic Wildlife (2006) is a spectacular addition to the Helm list.

List of figuresList of tablesIntroduction1. What makes a Snowy Owl?2. Distribution3. Palaentology, systematics and evolution4. Winter and summer habitats5. Breeding6. Timing and hatching7. Diet8. Numbers and population density9. Winter range and winter records10. Snowy Owl friends and foes11. Snowy Owls and peopleReferencesGlossaryIndex