Birdwatchers flocked to the Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain in Washington, D.C. this week for a rare glimpse at a snowy owl that had made its perch on top of various memorials.  

The owl also visited Louis St. Gauden’s allegorical Archimedes statue, at the parapet above Union Station.  “Snowy owls are coming from a part of the world where they see almost nothing human, from completely treeless open Arctic tundra,” said Scott Weidensaul of Project SNOWStorm, which tracks snowy owl movements.

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