{"id":23741,"date":"2025-03-11T14:36:55","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T15:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23741"},"modified":"2025-03-11T16:27:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T16:27:18","slug":"orange-alert-what-caused-the-colors-on-this-snowy-owl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23741","title":{"rendered":"Orange Alert: What Caused the Colors on This Snowy Owl?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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.<\/p>\n

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Bill Diller, a photographer living in Huron County, Mich., had never seen a snowy owl quite like this.<\/p>\n

In January, Mr. Diller\u2019s neighbor told him about a \u201cred-spotted snowy owl\u201d in the area. It\u2019s a part of Michigan known as \u201cthe Thumb,\u201d which becomes home to many snowy owls in the winter.<\/p>\n

People were calling the bird \u201cRusty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never heard of such a thing,\u201d Mr. Diller said, \u201cso I figured either he didn\u2019t know what he was talking about or this was some kind of exotic bird from Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Julie Maggert<\/a>, a snowy owl enthusiast, heard of Mr. Diller\u2019s sighting<\/a> and became determined to see \u201cCreamsicle,\u201d as she affectionately nicknamed the bird.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019s neighbor told him about a \u201cred-spotted snowy owl\u201d in the area. It\u2019s a part of Michigan known as \u201cthe Thumb,\u201d which becomes home to many snowy owls in the winter.People were calling the bird \u201cRusty.\u201d\u201cI had never heard of such a thing,\u201d Mr. Diller said, \u201cso I figured either he didn\u2019t know what he was talking about or this was some kind of exotic bird from Asia.\u201dWhen 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\u2019s sighting and became determined to see \u201cCreamsicle,\u201d 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.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23743,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23741"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23744,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23741\/revisions\/23744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}