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Animals
Matt Mikus

Minnesota Raptor Center's new owl needs a name. You can help pick it

Two photos of a small northern hawk owl.
The Raptor Center has welcomed a new northern hawk owl to its raptor ambassador program, but the young female bird needs a name.
Courtesy of The Raptor Center

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A young owl has joined the Minnesota Raptor Center as its newest ambassador, but she can’t fill out her paperwork for the new job because she needs a name (and she’s an owl).

You can help name her by voting in the poll, either through Google or Instagram.

The young female northern hawk owl was bred in captivity, so she’s unable to live in the wild. She joined the center in August 2025, when she was 6 weeks old.

Now she’ll have a new job to help educate and connect with the public as an ambassador of the center.

Polls are open until 11:59 p.m. Friday. Voters can choose between five names:

  • Sitka, after the Sitka spruce tree that northern hawk owls are known to rest in.

  • Frost, inspired by the chilly forests the northern hawk owl lives in.

  • Surina, from the scientific name of the species, Surnia ulula

  • Aurora, after the northern lights.

  • Zim, inspired by Minnesota’s Sax-Zim Bog where birders from around the world come to see these owls.

Northern hawk owls have hawk-like physical traits and behavior that is not common for most owls.

They’re also more active during the day and hunt small mammals and birds using their keen eyesight. They’re known to be able to track small mammals below 30 inches of snow with their sense of hearing.

They tend to live in boreal forests and near-polar regions and are not commonly found in Minnesota.