In winter, Snowy Owls often travel far south of their Arctic tundra homes and can be found in the oddest places. This year, there were a few very public appearances of Snowy Owls – including in NYC’s Central Park and at Union Station in Washington DC. Both appearances made national headlines as residents and visitors alike flocked to see the surprisingly cooperative birds. Although outside of their natural open habitat where they rely on eating lemmings and voles, these snowies were happily consuming rodents and pigeons in these cities. Award-winning author and naturalist Scott Weidensaul also happens to be co-founder of Project Snowstorm – a volunteer organization of scientists who research and tag Snowy Owls to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding this bird. If you find snowies irresistible (and who doesnt?), check out his interesting article about the DC bird and a few of the other snowies the team at Project Snowstorm is tracking.