It is mid-winter, and from the northland a blizzard of icy winds and
swirling snow crystals is sweeping with fury southward over woods and
fields. We sit in our warm room before the crackling log fire and listen
to the shriek of the gale and wonder how it fares with the little bundles
of feathers huddled among the cedar branches.
We picture to ourselves all the wild kindred sheltered from the raging
storm; the gray squirrels rocking in their lofty nests of leaves; the
chipmunks snug underground; the screech owls deep in the hollow apple
trees, all warm and dry.
But there are those for whom the blizzard has no terrors. Far to the north
on the barren wastes of Labrador, where the gale first comes in from the
sea and gathers strength as it comes, a great owl flaps upward and on
broad pinions, white as the driving snowflakes, sweeps southward with the
storm. Now over ice-bound river or lake, or rushing past a myriad dark
spires of spruce, then hovering wonderingly over a multitude of lights
from the streets of some town, the strong Arctic bird forges southward,
until one night, if we only knew, we might open our window and, looking
upward, see two great yellow eyes apparently hanging in space, the body
and wings of the bird in snow-white plumage lost amidst the flakes. We
thrill in admiration at the grand bird, so fearless of the raging
elements.
Only the coldest and fiercest storms will tempt him from the north, and
then not because he fears snow or cold, but in order to keep within reach
of the snowbirds which form his food. He seeks for places where a less
severe cold encourages small birds to be abroad, or where the snow's crust
is less icy, through which the field mice may bore their tunnels, and run
hither and thither in the moonlight, pulling down the weeds and cracking
their frames of ice. Heedless of passing clouds, these little rodents
scamper about, until a darker, swifter shadow passes, and the feathered
talons of the snowy owl close over the tiny, shivering bundle of fur.
Occasionally after such a storm, one may come across this white owl in
some snowy field, hunting in broad daylight; and that must go down as a
red-letter day, to be remembered for years.
What would one not give to know of his adventures since he left the far
north. What stories he could tell of hunts for the ptarmigan,--those
Arctic fowl, clad in plumage as white as his own; or the little kit foxes,
or the seals and polar bears playing the great game of life and death
among the grinding icebergs!
His visit to us is a short one. Comes the first hint of a thaw and he has
vanished like a melting snowflake, back to his home and his mate. There in
a hollow in the half-frozen Iceland moss, in February, as many as ten
fuzzy little snowy owlets may grow up in one nest,--all as hardy and
beautiful and brave as their great fierce-eyed parents.