• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Unusual Snowy Owl With Orange Feathers Is An “Owldorable” Mystery

March 25, 2025 by Deborah Bloomfield

Birders in Michigan are scratching their heads over unusual photos of a snowy owl. The animal is perfectly perched on a telegraph pole, but instead of snow white and black feathers, the owl’s feathers are colored orange. 

ADVERTISEMENT

Spotted in Huron County, the bird was photographed by amateur wildlife photographer Julie Maggert. Since sharing the images on social media, theories have been rife about what could have caused the bird’s feathers to become orange. 

ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.

One theory suggested that the owl had become covered in plane de-icer from nearby Huron County Memorial Airport. “The most likely explanation is that it was de-icing fluid at an airport, since some formulations are that red-orange color,” said Dr Scott Weidensaul, a co-founder of snowy owl research organization Project SNOWstorm, told the New York Times. 

Birds can become covered in dye or paint, either accidentally or by human means; sometimes they can even change color due to curry. 

However, others were skeptical of this idea and suggested the feathers were the result of a genetic mutation. Genetic mutations can play weird tricks on all kinds of animals, turning feathers and skin white, black, or even yellow.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Something environmentally turned on the pheomelanin pigment synthesis pathway to make this bird over-express this rufous, chestnutty color,” Professor Kevin McGraw told Michigan Live. McGraw suggested that the bird’s mother could have been exposed to a chemical that was then passed down to her chick, causing the coloration difference. “Through toxins, pollutants, other types of environmental stressors, including pesticides, heavy metal contaminants, or oxidative damage. Those are several things that come to mind with this bird,” he said.

Female snowy owl with black bars and bright orange eyes. Male snowy owl with almost entirely white feathers.

Female and male snowy owls look quite different, but neither typically sport orange feathers.

Image Credit: FotoRequest/Shutterstock

Male snowy owls are almost completely white, while female owls have dark bars across their feathers. It’s unlikely that the true cause of this owl’s mystery feathers will ever be known. 

According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, they have been aware of the bird since the middle of January. “The department has no plans to try to capture it for any reason,” Karen Cleveland, a wildlife biologist for the department, told the New York Times, “so we’re unlikely to ever have a conclusive explanation for this coloring.”

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Lacking Company, A Dolphin In The Baltic Is Talking To Himself

Source Link: Unusual Snowy Owl With Orange Feathers Is An "Owldorable" Mystery

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • You Should Never Leave These Foods In Your Fridge Door (But We Bet You Do)
  • These Gullies On Mars Look Carved – We Might Finally Know What Created Them
  • Potential Environmental Trigger For Autism Identified, 3I/ATLAS’s Tail Appears To Have Changed Direction, And Much More This Week
  • Spaghetti Has Inner Secrets We’re Only Just Learning About
  • How Far Back In Time Could You Go And Still Understand English?
  • We Now Know How The First People Reached America – And It Wasn’t On Foot
  • Two Major Coral Species Now Functionally Extinct In Florida Keys, After Record-Breaking Marine Heatwave
  • A “Super-Earth” In The Habitable Zone Is Half The Distance To Comparable Worlds
  • Adorable But Critically Endangered Bornean Orangutan Born In Conservation Success
  • How Did The FDA Settle On The “2,000 Calories Per Day” Guideline?
  • Comet 3I/ATLAS Losing At Least Two Kangaroos’ Worth Of Dust Every Second
  • Mummified Dinosaur Duo Prove They Had Hooves, Marking “The First Confirmed Hooved Reptile”
  • What Do The Numbers On Your Toaster Really Mean?
  • NASA Vs. Elon Musk: Is A Moon Landing This Decade Off The Cards?
  • Scientists Explored Some Of The Deepest Parts Of The Ocean And Spotted Some Seriously Weird Deep-Sea Creatures
  • 500-Meter-Tall Megatsunami Struck Remote Alaskan Fjord After Massive Landslide
  • 3I/ATLAS, CKM Syndrome, And Mosquitoes’ Final Frontier
  • Male Humpback Dolphins Spotted Wearing Sea Sponge “Wigs” To Woo The Ladies
  • Can’t Sleep? The Military Sleep Trick That Helps You Fall Asleep in Just 2 Minutes
  • Why You Should Really, Really Not Eat Dolphin Meat
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version