weeks. At the point when the young owls leave the nest around 3 weeks, the shrill squeals they emit may allow the mothers to locate them. Distribution and habitat Breeding range The snowy owl is typically found in the northern circumpolar region, where it makes its summer home north of latitude 60° north though sometimes down to 55 degrees north. However, it is a particularly nomadic bird, and because population fluctuations in its prey species can force it to relocate, it has been known to breed at more southerly latitudes. Although the total breeding range includes a little over , only about have a high probability of breeding, i.e. breeding at no more than 3–9-year intervals. Snowy owls nest in the Arctic tundra of the northernmost stretches of Alaska, Northern Canada, and the Euro-Siberian region. Between 1967 and 1975, snowy owls bred on the remote island of Fetlar in the Shetland Isles north of mainland Scotland, discovered by the Shetland RSPB warden, Bobby Tulloch. Females summered as recently as 1993, but their status in the British Isles is now that of a rare winter visitor to Shetland, the Outer Hebrides and the Cairngorms. Older records show that the snowy owls may have once semi-regularly bred elsewhere in the Shetlands. They range in northern Greenland (mostly Peary Land) and, rarely in "isolated parts of the highlands", Iceland. Thence, they are found breeding at times across northern Eurasia such as in Spitsbergen and western and northern Scandinavia. In Norway, they normally breed in Troms og Finnmark and seldom down as far south as Hardangervidda and in Sweden perhaps down to the Scandinavian Mountains while breeding is very inconsistent in Finland. They also range in much of northern Russia, including northern Siberia, Anadyr, Koryakland, Taymyr Peninsula, Yugorsky Peninsula, Sakha (especially the Chukochya River) and Sakhalin. Breeding has also been reported sporadically to the south in the Komi Republic and even the Kama River in southern Perm Krai. Although considered part of their regular range, the last breeding by snowy owls in the Kola Peninsula was in the early 1980s; similarly, breeding maps show the species in Arkhangelsk Oblast and the Pay-Khoy Ridge but no breeding records are known in at least 30 years in either. They range throughout most of the Arctic isles of Russia such as Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya, New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island, Commander and Hall Islands. In North America,