Arctic Owls on a Warming Planet
When they come to us in winter, Snowy Owls are honest messengers from an Arctic that most of us will never visit. (The inaugural post on Chasing Nature.)
Perched on a rocky point along the coast of Maine, the Snowy Owl is languid, indifferent, a predator without country. The wind and cold and crashing waves do not matter. You do not matter. The Snowy Owl cares not that you have driven halfway across winter to witness a white bird alone on the headlands.
So as you peer through binoculars and watery eyes at a creature from a place wilder and colder than Maine, the owl fixes its gaze out to sea, where it might snatch a duck from the waves for a meal. But then you curse the wind chill or stomp your frozen feet. The owl spins its head your way.
From a Snowy Owl’s eyes the Arctic speaks.
