Animal protection officers rescued a rare owl in Northern Virginia, and experts said a snowy owl was seen in Washington.

       In a social media post on Tuesday, the Fairfax County Police Department said its animal protection officers rescued a northern saw-whet owl on Nov. 17 in the Oakton area. The owl had flown into a home that was being built. Two officers caught the owl, checked it to make sure it wasn’t hurt and let it go.

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       Northern saw-whet owls are the “smallest owl species,” experts said, and they are rarely seen in the D.C. region. Typically, the owls migrate through the area every spring and fall, experts said, to nesting grounds in forest areas in the northern parts of the United States and Canada.

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       In D.C., a snowy owl was spotted last weekend just north of the McMillan reservoir near the Washington Hospital Center, according to the city’s biologist, Dan Rauch. Snowy owls don’t normally inhabit the D.C. area.

       Two snowy owls have taken up residence near the Mall

       Rauch said the last time there was an “irruption” — a temporary influx of a species in an area where it doesn’t normally live — of snowy owls was in 2014, when at least four were reported in the Washington region. And in 2018, two snowy owls were seen on the National Mall at an Agriculture Department building.

       Experts said snowy owl irruptions usually happen every four to five years, when the birds tend to migrate farther south than normal after a jump in population.