From Lotus Winnie Lee

❤️🦉My love for Owls🦉❤️

Magnificent adult male Snowy Owl in New York. Incredible experience to have one flying past you when least expected.

Hedwig in the wild

Ohhh JKR, how ironic (appropriate?) she misgendered the owls in the books and movies.

Hedwig is described as a lady owl, mostly white with just some black speckles here and there. All Snowies start off with adult pluage that is very highly speckled, but the females keep all their speckling while the males lose it over time, so book/movie Hedwig would be a solidly mature male Snowy. Hence in the movies, Hedwig was played by 7 different male Snowy Owls, otherwise they'd look like this:

Awwwww!!! I never knew that!

Snowies are a lot of fun. They're born all white, then their baby feathers are almost all black, then they go through an awkward middle stage where they're part black and part black and white, then all white with black spots, and then finally the males gradually "go bald" by losing spots usually from the head and chest down.

Baby

Strange Teen Phase

awwwww so cute