More people that guesses, but no one still knows the source of this perplexing pigmentation. Most seem to react to leave the Snowy alone, so we will likely never know the answer. Check out the new commentary in the article.
From NYT
Orange Alert: What Caused the Colors on This Snowy Owl?
Bird watchers along Lake Huron photographed the bird, which has been nicknamed Rusty and Creamsicle. But there is no consensus about what caused its unusual tint.
Bill Diller, a photographer living in Huron County, Mich., had never seen a snowy owl quite like this.
In January, Mr. Diller’s neighbor told him about a “red-spotted snowy owl” in the area. It’s a part of Michigan known as “the Thumb,” which becomes home to many snowy owls in the winter.
People were calling the bird “Rusty.”
“I had never heard of such a thing,” Mr. Diller said, “so I figured either he didn’t know what he was talking about or this was some kind of exotic bird from Asia.”
When he soon shared pictures on Facebook of the eye-catchingly orange bird perched atop a utility pole, he helped create a feathered phenomenon. The discovery has perplexed avian experts, too, creating an enduring mystery about what might have made a white bird turn bright orange.
Julie Maggert, a snowy owl enthusiast, heard of Mr. Diller’s sighting and became determined to see “Creamsicle,” as she affectionately nicknamed the bird.
She made a series of visits over several days from her home in Central Michigan with her Nikon Z8 and a zoom lens. After hours of waiting at a respectful distance, she finally got the perfect shot of the tinted bird on a telephone pole.
“My adrenaline was going crazy, I was so excited!” Mrs. Maggert said.
Her pictures helped make the case undeniable: The bird shared a color scheme with the planet Jupiter or a clownfish. But why?
Scientists who have studied owls for years struggled to explain the bird’s curious plumage.
“In over 35 years of study, we have found over 300 nests and banded over 800 chicks,” Denver Holt, director of the Owl Research Institute in Charlo, Mont., said in an email. “We have never seen any plumage aberration, or anything like what is in the photos of the owl.”
Kevin McGraw, a bird coloration expert and biologist at Michigan State University, shared a surprising hypothesis: The owl became orange as a result of a genetic mutation driven by environmental stress, such as exposure to pollution.
Dr. McGraw said in an email interview that samples from the bird were needed to test that and other hypotheses.
“We’d need to get feathers from this bird to understand the nature of the unique coloring,” he said.
Geoffrey Hill, an ornithologist at Auburn University and a co-author with Dr. McGraw of a book about bird coloration, shared his interpretation.
“It seems unlikely that it has spontaneously produced red pigmentation via a genetic mutation,” Dr. Hill said.
He said “the red coloration seems too red to be caused by” natural pigmentation. He added that “the pigmentation is not very symmetrical and appears on the parts of a normal snowy owl that are white.” He surmised that if the bird had a mutation, it would have changed the owl’s black patterns, or eumelanin, to orange, or pheomelanin. That is not how the bird was currently colored.
He believed it looked more consistent with the external application of a dye.
Scott Weidensaul, a co-founder of Project SNOWstorm, a volunteer snowy owl research group, also dismissed the mutation hypothesis. Additionally, his organization ruled out that the bird had been marked with dye from the United States Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory, which studies avian movements. It had been standard practice in the 1960s, before the advent of GPS transmitters, for snowy owl researchers to use spray paint to study migratory patterns.
Dr. Weidensaul offered his own suspicions about the bird’s hue.
“The most likely explanation is that it was de-icing fluid at an airport, since some formulations are that red-orange color,” he wrote in an email.
The closest airport to where the bird had been spotted, Huron County Memorial Airport, did not reply to a request for comment.
Mrs. Maggert, who saw Rusty or Creamsicle with her own eyes, is skeptical that the owl became orange through accidental contact with a dye or spray paint.
“The way that it’s on its body, I don’t know how it could just accidentally rub up against paint all up on the front of her face and head and back,” she said.
Unless someone comes forward and admits to pigmenting the snowy owl, there will be no effort to study the bird up close, and its rusty appearance is likely to remain a mystery.
Karen Cleveland, a wildlife biologist at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said that the state had been aware of the bird since mid-January. While the owl appears “healthy and well,” the state agency hasn’t publicized its presence to limit snowy owl chasers from potentially stressing the bird.
“The department has no plans to try to capture it for any reason,” Ms. Cleveland said, “so we’re unlikely to ever have a conclusive explanation for this coloring.”
Don’t snowies molt? I mean, if someone was looking, might they find one of these orange-colored feathers?
It will molt, but not until it’s back up in the Arctic. They’ll move back up north around April, molt over the summer and fall, and then head south again around October, so it’ll likely be pretty far from many people.
So if Creamsicle shows up next year, we’ll know it’s ‘natural’ and not paint or whatever?
It would definitely strengthen the validity of the idea it’s genetic. I’m not positive it if will replace 100% of its feathers by next year, but if it was some kind of dry/staining, it should be gone or look very faded or patchy from where it did molt. If it comes back with any orange, people will be sure to notice it!
I’d expect that if it’s not natural, (de icing spray, or whatever,) for the dye to fade or come out.
If it continues to persist, it’s probably some form of genetic. At least, that’s my thinking.
I’m surprised there haven’t been more people documenting this owl. People will flock to photograph snowies in general, but I’ve only seen photos of this owl from 2 people as far as I can tell. They’re only about 2 weeks apart, so it still looks the same.
I’m still assuming it’s some dye or pigment it got into, as I was glad this article had a guy saying no sign of this being genetic has ever been seen before and the coloration is not where a genetic modification would be expressed. I feel that their comments ruling that out has been more constructive in determining the cause than all the guesses about what it could be.
I’ll be a bit disappointed if the mystery is never solved, but ultimately the owl going on to migrate back north and hopefully return with normal feathers is better than the circumstances where we’d actually be able to get hands on with this specific owl.
Good luck, orange Snowy! I will keep my eye on the news for you!
Yup. And depending on what the dye was, that could be months from now. Maybe even years.
But without catching her, that’s really the only way to know.
As for the statements about genetics… there’s a lot we just don’t know. I assume it’s a dye, but, eh, I’m also comfortable saying “I don’t know, but she looks like she’s going through a pink hair phase, and I love it.”
Well if it stays safe and healthy it will molt the feathers and go white again if it’s not a genetic thing. But then it’s not as though we’ll recognize her if nobody bands her before she goes back home. They don’t necessarily migrate to the same place every year, so she may never return to Michigan again.
Maybe like flamingos, Rusty’s diet has something that makes it’s feathers turn pink or suppress the white that the pink is the default under color?
From my understanding of the reading, if that were the case it would be happening in a different pattern ( or perhaps no pattern, but on all feathers ). It being such a vibrant color would mean that it’s a high concentration, which would be showing elsewhere on other feathers
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else hypothesize that, but that was one of my original thoughts as well. I’d think it’s diet would be like other area owls though, and one would think that others would at least show slight hints of orange if that was the case. It’s been wild seeing all the ideas people have been suggesting overall though.
Many fish change their colors based on what they’ve been eating, trout for example can be light pink through dark orange, some even almost white. Most of the time, all the fish from the same lake will have similar coloration as their diets would be similar. I’d expect other owls in the area to show color if it were natural diet related. Maybe they ate something contaminated with a dye or landed in something with a dye.
Coincidentally with your username, fire retardant is one of the ideas I’ve seen tossed out there a few times, seemingly that was sprayed for wildfire prevention, I think.
I know I’ve had fish whose color changed with diet, but this seems much more drastic. I’m of the mind it’s something topical, but I have no idea what.
I’ve felt it was a mutation, but the people quoted clearly know more than I.
“In over 35 years of study, we have found over 300 nests and banded over 800 chicks,” Denver Holt, director of the Owl Research Institute in Charlo, Mont., said in an email. “We have never seen any plumage aberration, or anything like what is in the photos of the owl.”
This was the bit of info I’d been waiting for since I first heard about this owl. My hunch was if this is a possible gene expression, there would be at least some prior sign of it. This isn’t like one or 2 orange feathers, this thing is covered in them, and if nobody has ever found a single Snowy with even one orange speckle, this seems too extreme to have a genetic cause.
It’d be like if you saw a baby human with blue hair. You wouldn’t think it was natural because you’ve never seen a baby with even one blue hair before, so if it had 50% blue hair, you’d think it had been dyed for some reason. Sometimes babies are born with red hair to parents that don’t have red hair, since it’s a recessive gene so it may not always present itself, but you’ve seen people with red hair before so it’s not shocking when it does occur.
