A snowy owl confirmed up within the nation's capital, with specialists saying it is concentrating on the town's giant rat inhabitants.

The snowy owl was first seen on January 3, the identical day a winter storm produced eight inches of snow within the metropolis, removed from its summer time breeding floor in Canada.

Scott Weidensaul, a researcher at nonprofit Challenge SNOWstorm, which tracks the actions of snowy owls. mentioned some owls migrate south out of the Arctic each winter, however the quantity varies, he mentioned.

About each three to 5 years, there's a spike within the inhabitants of lemmings, a small rodent, Smithsonian Journal reported. The rodent is the owl's foremost meals supply, inflicting a bigger variety of owl chicks to outlive within the years when their inhabitants will increase. These years, generally known as "irruption" years, may have extra birds migrate additional.

"Snowy owls are coming from part of the world the place they see nearly nothing human, from fully treeless open Arctic tundra," Weidensaul mentioned.

"In irruption years, they have an inclination to go farther south than they often would," he mentioned. "A number of the snowy owls we're seeing now within the East and Higher Midwest are younger birds, on their first migration."

Most winters, North American snowy owls do not actually journey beneath the Nice Lakes or Cape Cod space, Weidensaul mentioned.

Snowy Owl, Washington D.C., Targeting Rats
A snowy owl appears down from its perch on a marble eagle of the Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain on the entrance to Union Station in Washington, D.C., on January 7, 2022. The owl has been seen round Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood since January 3. Carolyn Kaster/AP Photograph

Since January 3, the snowy owl has been noticed within the evenings flying round Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood, touchdown on Union Station, the Nationwide Postal Museum, varied Senate buildings and Capitol Police headquarters.

Late final week, about three dozen folks in thick coats skilled their binoculars on the football-sized chicken with vivid yellow eyes because it perched on the stone head of Archimedes, a well-known historical Greek mathematician, carved above the practice station entrance.

On eBird, a nonprofit platform utilized by birdwatchers, snowy owls have been reported this winter in Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, North Carolina and Maryland.

Because it was first seen, the Capitol Hill owl has attracted a number of dozen birdwatchers every night time hoping to identify the identical owl species that delivers messages to Harry Potter.

The onlookers have included new birdwatchers and people who have been doing it for many years, like Swiss ambassador to the U.S., Jacques Pitteloud, many hoping for a "lifer"—the primary time a birdwatcher has seen a specific chicken.

Final Thursday, the owl perched on a bronze eagle atop a flagpole. Then it soared, its 5-foot white wingspan silhouetted in opposition to the inky night time sky, to land on a big stone orb held by carved birds, a part of an ornate fountain.

Pitteloud picked up his digital camera tripod and ran by the grass to get a greater view. When he later posted on Fb, the 50-year veteran birdwatcher wrote, "The Famous person of Union Station! Snowy owl, a lifer for me in a really, impossible setting!"

Kerry Snyder, who lives in Washington, mentioned she lately turned an avid birdwatcher. "I received into birding in the course of the pandemic—it is an effective way to attach with folks outdoor, when that is been the most secure place to be."

She reminded different onlookers to not use flash pictures, or method the owl too intently, lest the chicken really feel startled or threatened—good practices for viewers observing any chicken of prey.

Scientists contemplate snowy owls to be "weak" to extinction and estimate the full world inhabitants to be lower than 30,000 birds.

Weidensaul mentioned that threats to snowy owls embody city hazards—particularly, automobile collisions and poisons used to kill prey animals like rats, which may additionally kill raptors—in addition to local weather change.

"The local weather is altering extra dramatically within the Arctic than anyplace else on Earth," he mentioned, and which will make sightings like this one even rarer. In some elements of the Arctic, thinning ice is already lowering the variety of growth years for lemmings.

After a long time finding out snowy owls, Weidensaul nonetheless feels awe: "It is a piece of the Arctic in downtown DC—you are not going to see a polar bear strolling in entrance of the White Home."

The Related Press contributed to this report.