Snowy owls live in the Arctic, on open, treeless land called tundra. A snowy owl measures 20 to 27 inches from the tip of its bill to the tip of its tail, with a wingspan of 4.5 to 5 feet. Adult snowy owls weigh about 3.5 to 6.5 pounds. In one large set of records, the mean body mass of adult snowy owls was 1636 g for males (995 birds) and 2109 g for females (1189 birds), and female snowy owls are larger and heavier than males. The snowy owl is the heaviest owl in North America, and one of the largest in the world.

A snowy owl has yellow eyes and a round head. Adult males can be almost pure white, while females and young owls have dark spots or bars. Feathers cover a snowy owl's legs and feet, and the thick feathers on its feet help keep them warm. All four toes of a snowy owl are covered with long feathers that reach the ground when it perches. The claws, or talons, of a snowy owl are sharply curved, long, black and very sharp. Male snowy owls give most of the hoots, and female voices are higher-pitched than male voices.

Snowy owls hunt at any time of day, except in severe weather. A snowy owl has excellent eyesight and hearing, and its hearing is sharp enough to find animals hiding under snow. Its acute hearing helps it detect prey in dim light, when vision is limited. A snowy owl often hunts by sitting still on a high spot and watching for food, and it flies low and sweeps down to grab prey with one foot.

The lemming, a small mouselike animal, is a snowy owl's favorite food, and a snowy owl may eat about 1,600 lemmings in a year. Each snowy owl must catch the equivalent of 7 to 12 mice a day to meet its food needs. To raise young across most of their range, snowy owls need high numbers of lemmings, small rodents weighing 60 to 90 grams, and lemmings fuel the owls' reproduction. Snowy owls nest on the tundra mainly in years when lemmings are plentiful, and a snowy owl lays more eggs in years when there is plenty of prey.

Snowy owls nest on the tundra in the far north of the world, and a snowy owl's breeding territory is usually about 10 square kilometers or less. A snowy owl nests on the ground, on a small rise or mound, and its nest is a shallow bowl scraped in the ground. Snowy owls start laying eggs from mid-May to early June, depending on weather and food. On Bylot Island in the Canadian Arctic, females lay 3 to 11 eggs, 7 on average per nest.

The nest is built and kept up by the female alone, and only the female sits on the eggs, which take about 32 to 33 days to hatch, in the order they were laid. While the female sits on the eggs, the male brings her food. Baby snowy owls are covered in soft white down when they hatch. The chicks leave the nest on foot, before they can fly, and young snowy owls first fly well, or fledge, at about 50 to 60 days old. As of November 2026, the longest-lived wild snowy owl on record was a female at least 23 years and 10 months old.

In winter, many snowy owls travel south to Canada and the northern United States, where they live in open places such as prairies, farmland, beaches and airports. Some snowy owls spend weeks or months in winter on the frozen Great Lakes. Some winters, many more snowy owls than usual move south out of the Arctic, and these big moves happen every few years. The snowy owls that travel farthest south tend to be the young ones. Snowy owls that go south usually begin the trip in November, and most are gone from their winter range by April.

Words to know

• fledge: first fly well
• territory: home ground
• talons: claws
• perches: rests on