Photos: Rare snowy owl spotted in Chattanooga

The first confirmed snowy owl in Hamilton County was spotted on Monday.

Kevin Calhoon, the assistant curator of forests at the Tennessee Aquarium, said there were people from all over the U.S. headed to the Chattanooga area to catch a glimpse of the bird.

Snowy owls typically spend most of the year around the Arctic and have been known to come near the Great Lakes and throughout New England during the winter months, Calhoon said. Its winter migration almost never leads this far south, but its presence here could be for any number of reasons, such as a population boom this season or a shortage of lemmings, the owl's preferred prey.