Transmitter gives a bird's-eye view into snowy owl's world

There are 15 snowy owls across North America wearing transmitters, and none of them behaves like the one that's been spotted in the city of Ramsey. He rarely strays. He's extremely popular. And he can't seem to fly from controversy.

"Ramsey" is the only suburban snowy owl monitored by Project SNOWstorm, a nonprofit national initiative to better understand and conserve these brilliantly white raptors. Other snowy owls wearing tracking harnesses travel hundreds of miles. One flew across Lake Erie. Two flew 150 miles along the Atlantic Coast.

But Ramsey stays within a mile radius of the mostly vacant 400-acre COR development area along Hwy. 10.

"Snowy owls like flat, open treeless places that look like the Arctic tundra," said Scott Weidensaul, an owl researcher and co-founder of Project SNOWstorm in Pennsylvania. "Most hunt in grassy areas.

"But Ramsey spends time on the roofs of buildings, on light standards and, after dark, on road signs."

The eight-month-old raptor whose yellow eyes burn brightly against his pearl complexion is believed to have been born in northern Quebec. But he truly loves the suburbs. One of his favorite hangouts, said Weidensaul, is a local hotel.

"Maybe he's attracted to the pool," he said.

In Ramsey, developers have invested sparingly in the vast COR area, but the city's namesake snowy owl obviously doesn't give a hoot. He seems to love the suburban community in Anoka County, and isn't bashful about posing.

"There are a bunch of snowy owls down in the Twin Cities right now, but Ramsey's the one whose picture is e-mailed to me by amateur photographers all the time," said Frank Nicoletti, a raptor counter for the Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth. It was Nicoletti who, while in the Twin Cities in January, captured and fitted Ramsey with his harness.

A few hundred snowy owls have been sighted in Minnesota this winter, in what is being considered by bird observers as a historical "irruption" year — possibly the biggest in a half century, Weidensaul said. An irruption is a sudden increase in population.

Snowy owls live and breed in the Arctic and often remain there through the winter. But they are nomadic by nature. A big lemming boom in northern Quebec provided the owls with an overabundance of food. Female owls laid lots of eggs and males provided enough rodents to feed a flock. In one nest, next to four unhatched eggs, a male snowy owl brought 78 lemmings, Weidensaul said.

So the owls, well-nourished and well provided for, began heading south in November.

"I'm told the owls are swooping down on the photographers, almost taking mice from their fingertips," Weidensaul said. "It's not illegal in Minnesota, but it's unethical to bait these creatures.

"By teaching owls that people have food, they're liable to swoop down on anybody," Weidensaul said. "It could be dangerous for the owls."

The lab mice used as bait may have been fed a nutritional diet harmful to the owls, who naturally prey on small birds and mammals, said Carrol Henderson, longtime head of the nongame wildlife program for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Henderson said that last week Minnesota DNR officials again discussed the need for laws that might better protect raptors. Luring an owl like Ramsey puts the raptor at risk to Hwy. 10 traffic, Henderson said.

The photographers also are at risk. Henderson says a Wisconsin photographer, who lured an owl with a mouse, was struck in the head by the owl's talons — and later ticketed for illegally enticing the raptor.

Ramsey will eventually leave the COR area, Weidensaul said. The snowy owls, which have wingspans up to five feet, prefer the Canadian Arctic, he said. Adult snowy owls are attracted to climates as frigid as 70 degrees below zero, he said.

"The winter you're having in Minnesota is balmy to them," he said. "For even a young snowy owl like Ramsey, this is like summer vacation."