Hopes love could be in the air for snowy owls

Female on Shetland, while male is waiting for a mate on Orkney

Could love be in the air for a rare and magical romance?

A female snowy owl – the species made famous by Harry Potter – has been spotted on Shetland, while a lonely male has been anxiously waiting for a mate on neighbouring Orkney for years.

If the pair get together and produce any young they will be the first British snowy owls in more than 40 years.

The last pair of snowy owls to breed in the UK was on Shetland in 1975.

The first UK breeding record was when the pair nested on Fetlar in 1967 and for the next eight years.

They produced 21 young over the period. A second female joined the pair in 1974 and 1975. Although she laid eggs, none hatched.

In 1976 the male failed to return. The two females summered on Fetlar until 1993, but no further male joined them and no further breeding has occurred.

The two current potential love birds are less than 170 miles apart, and Josh Jones of the authoritative Bird Guides said “that’s nothing for a bird that can fly 100 miles at night”.

The male bird has been on the Orcadian island of Eday for more than three years, while the female snowy owl turned up at Ronas Hill on mainland Shetland at the beginning of the month.

“It will be an amazing love story if they get together and produce the first UK snowy owls in more than 40 years,” said Mr Jones.

“It is possible, though the chances of them finding each other are slim but not out of the question at all. If they produce young there would be hundreds of birders wanting to see them.

“The bird on Orkney has been around for quite a while and seems quite at home. Both birds have probably come from Canada, where there are bigger populations of their species, and possibly ended up on a container ship and hitched a lift. We are keeping an eye on the situation hoping they meet up.”

The bird of prey is native to Arctic regions, including parts of Norway and North America.

In 2008 birdwatchers’ hopes of snowy owls breeding in the UK were raised when a male snowy owl on the Western Isles was joined by a female.

However, the pair were later spotted 50 miles apart. The male, nicknamed Elvis, whose plight was featured on the BBC’s The One Show at Christmas 2011 – after presenter Mike Dilger, filmed the owl – was often seen in Uig on the west side of Lewis.

At almost 2ft in height and with a wingspan of more than five feet, the snowy is one of the largest owl species in Europe.

The species was made famous in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books, in which Harry’s pet snowy owl Hedgwig delivered his post.

Although they spend the summer months in and around the Arctic Circle, outside their breeding season the owls are often nomadic.

Hopes have been raised that two birds will get together and produce the first British snowy owls in more than 40 years.