Snowy owls find home near airport runways

To a snowy owl, the runways looks like home: the tundra of northern Canada.

By TOM MEERSMAN, Star Tribune

With its almost-constant landings and takeoffs, you would think the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport would not attract birds, but to a snowy owl, the runways looks like home: the tundra of northern Canada.

The striking white raptors with huge yellow eyes are usually seen during in winter in northern Minnesota, but this year they have been spotted farther south and in greater numbers than usual. Two snowy owls have apparently staked their winter hunting claims at the airport.

"I've seen the bird 50 feet from a runway," said journalist and bird expert Jim Williams, who writes the Wingnut blog for StarTribune.com. "This huge jet plane comes down and it didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't fly away. It just seemed oblivious to a million pounds of roaring airplane."

Snowy owls are territorial and solitary at this time of year, he said. Because they patrol large areas, the chances of an owl-jet collision are virtually impossible.

Canadian reports have suggested that 2008 was a prolific breeding year for the owls, so the larger numbers flying farther south may be the result of population pressure and the need for juveniles to find new hunting grounds.

Snowy owls prefer lemmings, said Williams, but they'll settle for rabbits, mice, voles and other rodents that live in the open spaces between runways.

The one seen most frequently at the airport is white with lots of black markings and is probably a juvenile male. Adult males are pure white.

Julia Ponder, executive director at the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota, said that her staff has treated nine snowy owls so far this winter, equal to the past three years combined. One with a wing fractured in three places is recuperating at the center after surgery. It was found Oct. 30 near a railroad track in Cottage Grove.