It was a happy ending Saturday for Superior's humane officer and the snowy owl named Merlin before anyone realized it was an adult female.
The snowy owl was released in Superior after rehabilitation and is one of 10 snowy owls living in the Duluth-Superior area this winter, said owl bander David Evans of Duluth.
The owl released Saturday afternoon suffered a shoulder injury in early January and received seven weeks physical therapy in the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul.
It was released by Chris Wagner, Superior's humane officer, who had found the bird Jan. 6 near Super One when it was injured and unable to fly.
"I do this all the time, and I never get the happy ending," Wagner said after she released the owl. She said she hadn't heard anything about the bird for six weeks, and thought it had died. Then she got word the bird was coming back to Superior for the release.
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Evans had banded the same owl on Dec. 20, he said. He suspects it might have injured its shoulder flying into a wire. He had banded it on Winter Street in Superior, about a mile from where it was found injured.
Snowy owls nest in the tundra regions of Canada's Arctic. When prey species such as lemmings are low in number during the winter, some of the snowy owls fly as far south as Minnesota, Indiana and Illinois, Evans said.
Evans has been banding and studying wintering snowy owls in Duluth-Superior under a federal permit since 1974. In that time, he has banded nearly 400 snowy owls. Some winters, none of the owls spend time in Duluth-Superior. The highest number Evans has banded in a winter is 33. Ten is about an average number, he said.
Snowy owls are almost 2 feet long, with wingspans of more than 4 feet.
They are mostly white. In the Duluth-Superior harbor area, they typically prey on mice, Evans said. The good old days for snowy owls in the harbor area occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s, Evans said, when the harbor had "an exuberant population of Norway rats." Since 1983, after a die-off of the rats, owls have had to rely mostly on mice, he said.
Snowy owls typically roost on the jumbled ice of the harbor by day, Evans said, and get more active toward evening. On Saturday, after the adult female snowy owl was released near Superior's Super One, Evans found it a mile south, "attended by 28 crows," he said. Crows often gather to hassle owls.
The owl flew across 28th Street, Evans said, pursued by the crows. He later saw it at Superior Middle School sitting on a snow bank. He last saw the bird Sunday afternoon by the Richard I. Bong Airport in Superior.
Peregrine falcons also will hassle snowy owls, Evans said. The two adult peregrine falcons that live on the Greysolon Plaza Hotel are still in the city, and Evans has witnessed them diving at snowy owls.
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"It's great sport," Evans said. "The peregrine is taking its swipes, and the owl is jumping up with its feet out."
He hasn't seen a peregrine falcon actually hit or injure an owl.
"I think it's more play, the same as crows whacking at them -- standard procedure," he said.
Telegram editor Shelley Nelson contributed to this report.
