Amber Gaze-Snowy Owl

It is always mysterious when one sees an owl flying at night. One doesn’t expect to see a bird flying in the dark. It is a shame that the owl’s beautiful eyes are wide open when we are sleeping. They are too sensitive to strong daylight. This is different in the north. There lives a completely white owl that hunts during the day. He is one of the few exceptions, together with the great gray owl. The white coat of the snowy owl makes his wonderful yellow eyes stand out. They look like amber set in silver jewelry. That was the inspiration for this painting. The male snowy owl is almost completely white, while the female is spotted over most of the body. Surprisingly, the chicks can look quite gray. My best opportunity to see them came during my fieldwork for polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba. There, the snowy owl shares the tundra with all those other white creatures such as ptarmigans and Arctic foxes.