A rare snowy owl blown to the Island last month by winter weather was found dead in Dockyard this weekend.

Conservationist and ornithologist David Wingate said he had sat and watched the bird for several hours the day before its death, waiting for it to take off and begin to hunt, but the owl remained in place several hours after nightfall.

On Saturday morning, Dr Wingate returned to check on the bird, but was met by the owner of a nearby restaurant who had found the owl’s body beneath its perch.

“I watched it all day because it was in such a conspicuous perch,” he said. “A lot of people got to see it in that last day because it was perched in the Victualling Yard where many people come through. We didn’t realise it at the time but it was dying and as such it allowed people to watch it from fairly close.”

Dr Wingate said he will likely carry out an autopsy on the owl sometime after Christmas, but it did not appear the bird died of starvation.

“I would have expected that it would have died of starvation because making that long ocean crossing takes a toll and then it might not have been able to find the right food,” he said. “On the other hand they should do very well in Bermuda as they can feed off the rats. This bird had a good weight and strong muscle over the keel bone.”

He said the bird could have been killed by illness, noting a large number of mites on the animal, but said secondary poisoning — caused by eating poisoned rats — has not been ruled out.

“We have had a number of barn owls killed by secondary poisoning, so we thought that might be a problem,” he said. “I figure that rats would have been a major part of its diet since it arrived in November, but an autopsy would be needed to determine if there was any internal bleeding. Usually when we find barn owls killed that way, we find them bleeding from their mouths, but this one wasn’t.”

Government said last month that it was considering trapping and relocating the animal to the US and had no intention of killing the bird.

In 1987, Dr Wingate shot a snowy owl on the Island after it began to target the critically endangered Cahow population in Castle Harbour, killing five of the indigenous birds.

“As the conservation officer at the time, we had to shoot it because it was taking one cahow a night by February and we sort of panicked because we didn’t know any other way of dealing with it,” he said.

One of the largest species of owl, snowy owls typically nest in the Arctic tundra on Alaska, Canada and Eurasia, but have been known to venture as far south as Texas on occasion. Older males are almost purely white in colouration, while younger birds and mature females typically have black scalloping in their feathers.