From Julie Maggert
Sometimes, opportunities only come once in a lifetime. Well, I ended up having 4 with this Snowy. I couldn’t help myself and head over one more time. I hemd and hawd all morning about what my chances were going to be to get any better shots of her. You can not rely on nature. She does her own thing when she wants. I had more driving around this time. She made me work for it. She finally perched onto a utility pole early enough with bright, blue skies. I couldn’t be more proud of myself throughout this whole journey. It took a lot of work, time, and stubbornness. Again, she is REAL, no AI, nor color enhancing.
Could be, but it looks like it was blasted with some sort of paint while roosting somewhere.You can see the “shadows” where the feathers overlapped and seemingly blocked it.
Looking at the other pictures, it definitely looks like some sort of spray…
That’s the theory in running with. Kinda like something hit it from a top/right angle. It’s all on the back side and stronger in the right of the face.
There’s talk about it being some stress or environmental trigger, but I haven’t come across anything to support it. Nothing like this has been observed before in a Snowy. There just nothing really to go on yet.
I should think getting blasted by a spray painter would be pretty stressful!
When it was first reported, there were two comments I thought significant. The first was that the coloring matched pretty well what would have been exposed had she been roosting - it wasn’t consistent on the feathers, but mostly the edges.
Second, didn’t someone say the state confirmed that it looks like the dye they put in the washing solution for under-bridges? Something like that.
I do recall a rust inhibitor comment, but I haven’t heard any “oh yeah we did first a bridge with orange stuff around that time.”. Also heard some theories about aviation deicer, but again, nothing after the original statement.
I would think there could only be so many things that could dye a bird for over a month that are orange, and the people using it would say, “hey that must be this!”
We’ll know after she molts. I can believe any “temporary” dye could be effectively permanent on something as porous as feathers.
It’s clearly not paint, though, and with any luck not toxic for her when she preens.
I will say, it certainly made her striking!
It’s definitely one of a kind and has maybe people fascinated!