Snowy Owl – A Year in the Life

An impressive body of work joining photography and science to tell the story of the mysterious and endangered Snowy Owl, roaming far and wide in the fells and tundra in search of lemmings and moles. As the climate warms, lemmings will dwindle and the living conditions deteriorate for the owl, and the entire North will be the poorer for it.

Snowy Owl is a story of the mythical white owl from the land of open tundra and arctic fells, long winters of snow and darkness, short summers filled with light. Lemmings and moles, and their age-old population crashes that spell hardship for the great arctic owl. Snowy Owls nest in Lapland only during the best lemming years, and as suddenly and unpredictably as the birds arrive, they disappear again. Jorma Luhta has made countless journeys into their northern land and depicted their life with both camera and pen. The Snowy Owl’s behaviour and annual cycle is captured equally arrestingly in Markus Varesvuo’s pictures. Pertti Koskimies has decades of research experience in northern birds of prey, and he has compiled the latest information on Snowy Owl nesting and migration, and the threats to its existence as climate change accelerates.