Category: General News

927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks, Bats, Central Park Coyotes, Central Park Snowy Owl 2021, Eurasian Eagle-Owl, General News, Other Animals, Other Birds, Owls, Red-tailed Hawk Nest Updates

Central Park in the Dark Revisited

From about 2005 to about 2009, I had a wonderful time getting to know Maire Winn and her friends, affectionately known as “The Regulars”. During the daytime they mainly watched Pale Male, his mates and their offspring. After dark, I would join them on their nocturnal adventures, observing owls, insects, and mammals. They were passionate naturalists who were thrilled to learn about the natural world through field work and research.

My fondest memories of the gang were our owl-watching adventures. Each time we spotted an owl, we discovered something new about these fascinating creatures.

Shortly after the publication of her last book, Central Park in the Dark in 2008, Marie and her friends stopped visiting the park regularly. Two of “The Regulars” had passed away, others faced health challenges, and one happily fell in love and moved to Florida.

Marie Winn passed away at the end of 2024.

She updated her book about Pale Male, his mates, and their offspring, Red-tailed in Love, for a tenth anniversary edition. I’ve often wonder what a sequel to or a revised edition of Central Park in the Dark would have included, if Marie and her friends had been able to continue their nocturnal prowls in Central Park.

The subtitle of Central Park in the Dark was “More Mysteries of Urban Wildlife.” Marie Winn, an accomplished nature writer, described the park’s wildlife through captivating adventure stories that showcased both the observers and their discoveries. Without resorting to heavy-handed explanations, Winn imparted valuable lessons about how to be a naturalist. She demonstrated how to harness one’s innate curiosity and embark on a journey of discovery, exploration, and research. Winn also illustrated the iterative nature of scientific inquiry, where initial hypotheses are refined or discarded based on new discoveries.

Since the book’s publication, the park has welcomed a new wave of visitors. In the past 17 years, we’ve had two extraordinary owls: a rare Snowy Owl and a non-native Eurasian Eagle-Owl that was released from the Central Park Zoo. Additionally, we’ve had extended stays by Northern Saw-whet Owls, a Barred Owl, a Great Horned Owl, and most recently American Barn Owls. Each of these owls would have deserved its own chapter in a new or revised book.

Other nocturnal birds, such as Black-crowned Night-Herons (who regularly feast on the park’s buffet of Brown Rats), Nightjars, and American Woodcocks, are also being observed more closely at night. These birds would have been described as antidotes sprinkled throughout the new chapters.

The park has also seen some new mammals. Eastern Cottontail Rabbits have become common, appearing around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. After three brief visits by coyotes over a decade ago, we now have a pair of resident Eastern Coyotes. Southern Flying Squirrels are being seen regularly with the aid of thermal monoculars. In a revision edition or sequel of the book, I’m sure flying squirrels and rabbits would have each gotten a new chapter, while the coyotes might have required multiple chapters.

Since the book’s publication, technology advancements have greatly aided nocturnal observations.

  • Digital cameras now enable photographers to capture wildlife in extremely low light conditions.
  • High-resolution thermal monoculars have become available, enabling naturalists to locate and identify flying squirrels, owls and coyotes even in complete darkness.
  • Bat detectors have advanced significantly, with devices like the Wildlife Acoustics Echo Meter Touch 2 that plug into smartphones, allowing users to easily hear bat echolocations and automatically identifies the bat species.
  • Smartphone apps such as Merlin (sound and photo identification), iNaturalist (a peer-to-peer naturalist community), and Sky Guide (a star and planet guide) have simplified the process of identifying birds by sound or photographs, identifying plants, insects and animals, and observing the night sky.

I’m certain Marie and her friends would have been thrilled to embrace these new technologies. Any new stories or revisions of older ones would have included mentions of these innovative tools.

A revised edition of or a sequel to Central Park in the Dark would have most likely included the following updates to existing chapters or additional new chapters.

Marie’s first chapter, “Party-Crashers and Flying Mammals”, includes notes about the Red-tailed Hawks, Pale Male and Lola, along with antidotes about raccoons and bats. Each of these topics would have received updates.

  • While the nest was returned to 927 Fifth Avenue, due in large part to Marie Winn’s advocacy, Pale Male and Lola’s nests failed. Eggs were laid, but they did not hatch. It led to a lot of discussion and second guessing about the cradle that had been installed to support the new nest.
    In the end, it turned out Lola had become infertile. When Lola died and Pale Male mated again, there were eyasses (hawk chicks) once more. This resulted in several successful clutches before the nest was unproductive once again. Eventually Pale Male passed away. Marie would have written beautifully about this post-Lola era and published a wonderful obituary about Pale Male’s life.
  • Raccoons, which are written about benevolently, became a problem in 2009-2010 due to a rabies outbreak that ended up with two people being bitten, a person walking a dog, and hot dog vendor. Over one hundred raccoons were found dead, and others were euthanized. Thankfully, many were saved from infection through a vaccination program.
    Unfortunately, due to poor trash management and park patrons feeding the raccoons, raccoons and gray squirrels are overpopulated in the park, displacing birds and other animals that use tree cavities. Raccoons are a more complicated subject than the few pages they received in Marie’s book.
  • Studying the park’s bats became much easier with the introduction of Wildlife Acoustics Echo Meter Touch 2 device. The meter attaches to a smartphone and listens for a bat’s echolocation. Using software, the meters determine the species of bat based on its echolocation pitch and pulse rate. No longer is tagging along with a BioBlitz necessary; anyone can now easily identify the park’s bats.
    Since Marie’s book was published White-Nose Syndrome has decimated the Little-brown Bat population and reduced the number of Big-brown Bats. However, bats continue to be abundant during the warmer months and are easy to spot.
    At the Conservatory Water (also known as Model Boat Pond), on late summer evenings, Chimney swifts feed on insects and drink before roosting in a nearby Fifth Avenue Chimney. As darkness sets in, the swifts are replaced by feeding bats. The Eastern Red Bats are the first to arrive, followed by Silver-haired Bats, Big Brown Bats, and Tricolored Bats. It’s a delightful evening, and I’m certain Marie and her friends would have enjoyed adding this to their nocturnal activities in Central Park.

Marie’s second chapter, “The Ghost of Charles”, includes notes about numerous owl species, owl ethics, flying squirrels, and white-footed mice. (I regret to say that I started birding a year after Charles Kennedy passed away and never had the opportunity to meet him. From all accounts, he was an incredible person.)

  • Owls would have certainly warranted many new chapters. Numerous Northern Saw-whet Owls the Barred Owl that was named Barry and the Great Horned Owl, Gerald(ine) with a damaged leg, the once-in-a-century Snowy Owl visit during COVID-19, Flaco, the Eurasian-Eagle Owl released from the zoo, and the American Barn Owls of 2025-2026 are some of the notable owls that resided in Central Park over the recent years.
  • Owl ethics have become a challenging and divisive issue in Central Park. Social media facilitated the rapid sharing of owl locations, and social media influencers exploited owls to boost their feeds. The “celebrity bird” phenomenon led to crowds gathering around certain owls, leading to their harassment. When wild animals are used for entertainment, humans unfortunately often exploit them.
    Additionally, people often respond to wildlife as though they are pets, leading to unintended consequences such as feeding harmful food to the animals or the unwise protection of invasive species such as feral cats. It’s a complex issue.
    Central Park in the Dark was a lighthearted story. In a revision, discussing ethics wouldn’t be a lecture in a dedicated chapter. However, I suspect Marie would have added a few paragraphs here and there to illustrate the problems and challenge readers to reflect on their own ethics.
  • In this chapter, flying squirrels are described as almost mythical creatures in a few paragraphs. Thermal monoculars have made it possible to finally study them. The park is home to numerous Southern Flying Squirrels making them a subject worthy of a new chapter.

Chapters three through six primarily discuss moths and insects, but they also mention Black Skimmers, Astronomy, and Kingbirds.

  • Studying moths became easier in recent years. While used copies of Covell’s Moths guidebook can still be found for sale online, applications such as iNaturalist has made it much easier to network with other amateur Lepidopterists to identify moths.
  • Black Skimmers continued to appear, but more rarely. They used the Conservatory Water, also known as The Model Boat Pond, for a few years before the Central Park Conservancy began adding dye to the water annually. Most sightings are now on The Lake, often with the skimmers going under Bow Bridge.
  • Eastern Kingbirds continue to nest on the west side of Turtle Pond, usually having two or three offspring each year.
  • Astronomy remains an activity in Central Park, with notable events such as supermoons, planet convergences, comets, and eclipses. New smartphone apps, such as Sky Guide, make it easier to identify planets and constellations.

Chapter 7, “Birds Asleep,” details morning bird sounds, jokes about a rabbit (which would have been a chapter in a revised book), comets, and American Robin and Common Grackle roosts. Chapter 8, “Pale Male Asleep,” discusses the expansion of Red-tailed Hawk nests in New York City and the Woodland’s Committee.

  • Merlin, Cornell University’s sound and visual identification tool, would now be a central topic in this section about bird sounds. It’s a great tool for discovery, but like any A.I. tool it’s not always accurate, so it’s important to question its results.
  • In an era where tools like eBird, social media, and Merlin risk transforming birdwatching into a mere game akin to Pokémon Go, I’m certain Marie would have written about how to effectively utilize tools like Merlin, not as a crutch, but as a means to enhance observations.
  • After many Common Grackle roost trees were damaged in a winter storm, they were cut down and replaced with a different species. Consequently, there’s no longer a massive influx of birds at dusk at Grand Army Plaza.
  • Red-tailed Hawk nests, while experiencing a recent decline in Central Park, are still doing well throughout the city. A discussion of the history of the other Red-tailed Hawk nests in Central Park, over the last fifteen years would be an interesting update.
  • Regrettably, the Woodland’s Committee no longer exists. The Central Park Conservancy has ceased its interest in meeting with the naturalist community.

Chapter 9 through 12, are primarily about owl watching. The reintroduction of the Eastern Screech-Owl failed, and although Marie generally wrote positive accounts, a dedicated chapter would be necessary to detail the outcome of the project. When the reintroduction was first proposed, Peter Post Peter Post expressed concerns at a Woodlands Committee meeting that we shouldn’t reintroduce them if we don’t first understand why they died out. His concerns proved warranted. Factors such as rodenticides, car collisions, predation and cavity contention with over-fed squirrels resulted in most of the owls dying, with a few dispersing to areas outside of the park. By 2012, there were no longer any Eastern Screech-Owls in the park.

Marie Winn’s writing beautifully captured the joy of studying nature. While her tales occasionally contained anthropomorphic elements that some readers found excessive, she conveyed to her readers the immense pleasure derived from the process of discovery. She educated New Yorkers about the abundance of nature within the city that could be enjoyed and explored. Her books inspired many New Yorkers to embrace the natural world and become naturalists.

Central Park continues to be a magical place to study wildlife in both the day and at night.

It’s too bad she wasn’t able to revise or to have written a sequel to Central Park in the Dark. I bet Even More Mysteries of Urban Wildlife would have been a best seller.

Central Park Coyotes, General News

Central Park’s Trash Mismanagement and Rodent Control Issues

Using a thermal monocular at night in the park has opened up a window into the park’s nocutural wildlife. While it has let me discover the habits of our Coyotes and watch a Southern Flying Squirrel, it has also shown me some of the problems in the park. The worst is how bad the park’s trash management has become. I see scores of raccoons and rats around all of the park’s trash cans and restaurants. Not only has led to an overpopulation of rats and raccoons, but could also habituate the park’s coyotes to human food. This could cause them to become aggressive toward humans.

Let’s help keep our wildlife, wild and manage the park’s trash properly.

There are a number of factors involved:

  • The efficient collection of trash, which was optimized while Douglas Blonsky was president of the Central Park Conservancy to ensure trash was not left accessible to rodents, seems to have been abandoned.
  • The trash cans, a gift from Alcoa years ago, do not prevent animals for accessing the trash and are in a state of disrepair.
  • The transfer stations, where park employees aggregate trash leave the garbage accessible to animals, with trash often being left overnight.
  • The recycling refuse is not taken offsite, but stored in tractor trailer sized dumpsters at The Mount.
  • Ignoring NYC Department of Health regulations, many of the park’s restaurants leave their refuse in open trash cans or dumpsters.
  • The feeding of wildlife by park patrons either by not disposing of trash properly, or intentional feeding.

When Douglas Blonsky was President of Central Park, an effective progress for managing trash in the park was put into place to minimize consumption by Brown Rats and Raccoons. The park removed some trash cans in the Ramble and the North Woods, and developed a system of trash collection, that aggregated garbage and ensured that it was collected promptly rather than letting it sit overnight.

This system, while it could have been improved upon, allowed Chipmunks to make comeback in the north woods. Unfortunately, in other areas of the park, Brown Rats and Gray Squirrels still dominate and prevent the Chipmunks from reestablishing themselves.

Douglas Blonsky’s replacement, Betsy Smith was hired primarily to focus on fund raising in 2018. Betsy Smith has done a fantastic job raising funds for important captial projects, such as the refurbishment of Chess and Checkers and the Conservatory Garden, the replacement of the Lasker Rink/Pool with the fabulous Davis Center, and the soon to be completed North Meadow Recreation Center and Southern Grand Army Plaza renovations. However, basic operations of the park have declined since Douglas Blonsky’s departure. Some of this was caused by a reduction in city funding by Bill de Blasio, put I suspect it is also a change in focus from by the President and the Board to larger projects, ignoring day-to-day operations.

I would hope that once this round of capital projects is completed, the conservancy would focus on providing long term funding for staff positions and smaller projects. Universities have endowed professorships, and orchestras endowed performers. Isn’t it time to start raising funds to endow arborists, gardeners, a naturalist, and multiple maintenance positions?

Basic maintenance is lacking and smaller less glamourous projects that would have a huge impact on the park are being neglected. It seems as though if it can’t have a brass plaque attached to it, the project doesn’t get done. Sidewalks, fence repairs, signage, hand railings (a ramp with railings was recently installed in Shakespeare Garden, but railings which would have helped the majority of the park’s older patrons were not installed on the stairs going up to Belvedere Castle), wheelchair cutouts and ramps (only two steps prevent wheelchair users from viewing the wonderful ceiling tiles of the Bethesda Fountain arcade), and bathroom renovations all seem to be forgotten since they aren’t donor friendly.

But basic trash management and rodent control might be the worst failure of the current management team. This decline has allowed the park to become overrun with Brown Rats and Raccoons. There is also a serious risk our Eastern Coyotes could also become habituated to human food and loose their fear of humans.

Trash Cans
The park’s trash cans simply need to be replaced with more modern trash receptacles that prevent animals from accessing the trash and there need to be enough of them to prevent trash from overflowing on busy days. Walking through the park at night and you’ll see families of raccoons jumping in and out of the trash cans. The raccoons often pull out food containers, spilling the food and then feeding nearby rats. The receptacles don’t need to be “bear proof”, just raccoon and rat proof.

In addition to not being animal proof many of the current trashcans are in poor condition. Here is a picture of two without lids.

Depots and Collection Timing
The park’s trash is collected by employees driving electric carts and consolidated at depots along the drives. Originally, this was supposed to be timed, so trash wasn’t left unattended only briefly. But today, if you visit these depots in the early hours of the evening you’ll see raccoons ripping open trash bags, with rats cleaning up the scraps.

The problem is made worse by the recycling trash which often gets left at the depots. Because park patrons often put food waste or liquids in the can/bottle trash cans this trash attracts animals but is treated as though it contains only recyclables. This trash is often left for a longer period, which exacerbates the problem.

Liquids (and odors) leak out of the trash, but the depots are not cleaned, nor are they hosed down after the trash is collected. Some of the depots smell so bad, you can smell them from a block away. Walk into the park from Grand Army Plaza at 59th and Fifth Avenue and after you pass the Zoo and before you arrive at the Mall, you’ll be greeted by the worst smell you may ever encounter. That what greets NYC tourists daily.

Leaving the trash and recyclables out in the open just isn’t working. The trash needs to be stored in containers that are animal proof and the sites need to be hosed down after the trash is collected. The city is piloting large dumpsters to collect trash in city neighborhoods, and these might be a perfect fit for Central Park.

The Mount
The Mount, also known as the Compost Heap, has three large tractor trailer sized dumpsters where recycling is stored. (There are also two additional dumpsters on the bypass road that goes across the park around 103rd Street.)

The Mount which used to be free of debris have been left a complete mess by the contractors who worked on the Davis Center and Conservatory Garden. (This seams to be par for the course this season. In Shakespeare Garden, to meet an opening deadline, the lattice work for the new rustic fences was left unfinished and the lumber thrown behind some shrubs.) A cynic would say that it shows the lingering racism and classism of the Conservancy’s staff and board, that an acre of the park “uptown” has been left in such disrepair. Or it simply is incompetence. Either way, the site needs to be restored to a natural state and a better solution found for the dumpsters.

Every evening Brown Rats and Raccoons feed on the garbage in the dumpsters and often the coyotes come by at some point in the night to fed on the Brown Rats. The dumpsters would be fine if they contained only recyclable materials, but those bags often have mixed trash. Just like with the transfer stations, rodent proof dumpsters are needed to replace the tractor trailer sized dumpsters.

I’m including some pictures below, not only of the dumpsters, but of the leftover construciton materials at The Mount. The area truly is an embarrassment. The remaining construction material included a mountain of large boulders left over from the restoration of the stream from The Loch to The Meer.

Restaurants
Most of the park’s restaurants are not complying with NYC Health Department regulations requiring the use of lidded, rigid containers for all trash, including food waste. As a result, there is a feeding frenzy at most of the restaurants nightly.

Some of the restaurants, simply don’t have enough containers. This is the case with the Le Pain Quotidian at Mineral Springs (just north of Sheep Meadow). NYC law requires restaurants to have enough containers to handle 72 hours worth of waste.

Walk by the restaurant at night and you’ll see a collection of Raccoons and Brown Rats feasting on the garbage. One one night I saw over 20 Brown Rats and three Raccoons eating the trash.

At the Loeb Boathouse the situation is much worse. Here you have open dumpsters, filled with trash. Whole families of raccoons and armies of Brown Rats descend on the open dumpsters each night.

It’s a shame that the area north of the Loeb Boathouse continues to be just a parking lot filled with cars, dumpsters and shipping containers. With car traffic in the park having been banned years ago, why hasn’t this being redesigned? There must be a way to discreetly hide the trash and provide a more attractive way to store materials for the restaurant and the special Achilles’ Bikes. (The same goes for the Tavern on the Green’s unused parking lot, which could be reclaimed and turned into a garden, with a nice round driveway for taxis.)

Park Patrons Feeding Animals
Unfortunately park patrons are feeding animals either by littering or intentionally. Littering will always be a problem in a public park.

However, the intentional feeding of animals is a serious problem.

The feeding of birds, squirrels, and raccoons by park patrons has seriously increased the population of non-native birds, squirrels, and raccoons in the park, but also the rat population. This displaces native bird species and native animals such as chipmunks.

There are individuals feeding birds and raccoons regularly, and at these areas at night you will see scores of rats, and can find large established burrows of the rodents. The over population of raccoons has also led to two disease outbreaks in the Central Park population, both rabies and distemper.

Sadly, when the Park’s Department proposed restricting the feeding of animals in city parks, there was a public outcry, and new regulations were not approved. So, what I consider to be littering is still allowed by regulations. It’s sad to see how many people interact with wildlife as though the animals are their outdoor pets, rather than wild creatures.

For the coyotes, an individual who leaves high quality fish and meat out for raccoons, has meant that they visit a feeding location nightly. But also about 30 Brown Rats visit the same spot nightly! And this spot is right next to a children’s playground.

It’s time to prohibit the feeding of wildlife in city parks. The people doing it are doing it for their own enjoyment and not for the welfare of the animals. There needs to be a clear boundary between humans and wildlife.

In addition to banning the feeding of wildlife, I’ve always believed New York City Parks should also adopt the Canadian National Park’ s language prohibiting harassment of animals in for NYC park regulations. Their guidelines say, “It is against the law to touch, entice, disturb or otherwise harass any wild animals big or small.” I especially like the use of the word entice, as it would restrict the use of audio playback or the feeding of animals using bread or nuts to bring them closer.

Rodent Control
Even with the best management of waste disposal, there will always be some rats. While the Conservancy occasionally uses rodenticides, it does so on a very limited basis to protect the rodent predators in the park, such as Red-tailed Hawks. While this was the correct approach a decade ago, two new and effective methods of controlling rat populations have recently become available, CO2 and rodent contraceptive bait, and should be concidered.

The use of carbon dioxide as a method of fumigation for burrow systems, either by using dry ice or devices such as the IGI CO2 Liphatech, can be very effective at killing brown rats, without the risks of secondary poisoning of other animals. This method has been successfully used in smaller parks in Manhattan, including Washington Square Park and Tompkins Square Park.

Rodent contraceptive bait is being experimented with in NYC, and is available in both a liquid and solid form. The solid form is being used quite effectively in Bryant Park. The Conservancy should be encouraged to pilot the use of these baits, especially in infested areas, such as the shore of the Pond.

Moving Forward
The health code violations are the easiest to address. I’m going to start photographing the violations when I see them and report them to the health department. I would encourage everyone else to do the same. If you’re walking your dog at night, take a picture and make a complaint.

The Park’s Department also has a department that manages concessions and I’ll be writing a letter of complaint and copying the health department.

Pressuring the Conservancy to revised their trash collection and rodent control procedures will be much harder. I’m still trying to figure out how to influence them. Email me with any suggestions!

Lastly, I’m not sure how to mobilize naturalists to influence park regulations. The “animal lovers” who feed wildlife are a strong lobby. Fixing this issue might not be possible politically. But it’s time to give the Urban Park Rangers and P.E.P. (Park’s Enforcement Patrol) regulations that let them crack down on habitual feeders of animals, who bring so much food into the park that they end up feeding more than a few bids or squirrels but an army of rodents.

General News

Tompkins Square Park

I haven’t had a chance to get down to Tompkins Square Park recently. I was last there just after Christo disappeared and the new male appeared.

The new nest location is very hard to see! There are a number of small windows that let you see the birds if the winds are right. I arrived just before both parents went to the nest, and the mother fed the three youngsters. It’s so nice to see yet another successful nest in the park.

General News

Flaco’s Postmortem Lab Results

The postmortem lab results had come back for Flaco. You can read the details on the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) website. The testing revealed two underlying that contributed to his death, a herpesvirus most likely transmitted from his prey of Rock Pigeons, and exposure to four different rodenticides due to his consumption of Brown Rats.

His cause of death, which was initially linked to a collision or fall, was precipitated by these two underlying conditions. As, I said a few weeks ago, what really killed Flaco was science denial. While the vandal who released him is untimely responsible for Flaco’s death, there were many organizations that failed Flaco.

The zoo failed to protect and recover Flaco. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WSC) has never addressed the poor security at the Central Park Zoo, the public relations vacuum that led to the disruption of the rescue attempts, and the abandonment of the rescue attempts after only two weeks which the WCS justified because of Flaco’s ability to feed himself, ignoring the risks he faced in Manhattan and the risks he posed to native wildlife.

Social Media influencers, such as David Barrett, who actively interfered with the rescue efforts to recover Flaco also share responsibility for Flaco’s death. As does both the print and television media, who rather than calling for Flaco’s recapture, glorified his existence outside of the zoo as some wonderful expression of freedom and an immigrant story of someone arriving in the Big Apple and making a new life.

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, General News, Owls

Science Denial Killed Flaco

Flaco’s death wasn’t a window collision or some other cause. It was science denial.

To borrow the title from Davis Guggenheim’s film of Al Gore discussing climate change, Flaco’s story has an inconvenient truth. A Eurasian Eagle-Owl raised by humans and not native to North America, released into Manhattan would have a lifespan outside the zoo of less than eighteen months.

Flaco’s life outside of the zoo, was not a wonderful life where he was a free and wild bird. He was a feral bird in an urban purgatory where he would be alone forever. New Yorkers choose to ignore the risks Flaco would face in Manhattan, and the risk he might become to native wildlife.

It was much more fun to enjoy wonderful images of him, keep track of his location, read cute stories of him being a “Peeping Tom”, catch a glimpse of him, listen to him hooting or fantasize that he was living his “best life” flying free, than to work to recover him.

We selfishly ignored the truth and simply let him die. We did not love him.

We were intrigued and infatuated with him, but we failed to protect him. Even birders who knew the city was an unsafe place for Flaco, let their bias against captivity prevent them from speaking out. When the zoo announced after only two weeks that it was giving up on capturing Flaco, there should have been protests not celebration.

It was never a simple story of “zoo bad, freedom good”. Flaco could easily have been recaptured in the first few months, if the zoo had worked to control the narrative and had immediately hired the correct people. Once recovered, public pressure would have then forced the zoo to build Flaco a better enclosure or he could have been placed with an owl sanctuary. It was never a binary choice of a small cage or Manhattan.

The inconvenient truth got in the way of gaining social media followers, taking a photograph, publishing “feel good” news stories, filming a documentary, selling merchandise, painting murals, and protecting a zoo’s reputation.

A radical animal activist released him without considering the risks. It was the act of an anarchist, who was willing to cut short an owl’s life to prove a point. No large owl has lived in Manhattan for more than 18 months in the last few decades. Flaco wasn’t being released to some alpine forest. Flaco was simply being used as a pawn in a battle over zoos.

This radical animal activist was celebrated as a hero by many. Would we celebrate someone letting a parrot out of its cage, or dumping a house cat in Central Park? No. So, why did we celebrate Flaco’s release? And why did we applaud an anarchist?

Flaco’s fate was sealed during the first two weeks of his life outside the zoo. A perfect storm of a social media influencer who loved to be in front of television cameras while pretending to be an expert, the media looking for that happy and positive special interest story and a zoo administration without a leader with a P.R. policy of non-engagement, turned the public from understanding that Flaco need to be captured to wanting him to stay free.

After Flaco’s release from the zoo, any media publicity, especially publicity that would invite the public to watch any rescue efforts would hamper his capture.

However, this occurred due to a campaign by David Barrett via his X account, the Manhattan Bird Alert, to cast Flaco’s release not as a misguided criminal act, but as a chance for an invasive species to live happily in New York City. David Barrett, as he did with a Mandarin Duck, Snowy Owl and a Barred Owl, has a habit of turning birds into celebrities, not for the benefit of the bird, but to promote his social media account and to get himself in the print and television media.

The media got duped by David Barrett and others with Flaco. Major media outlets, including The New York Time and the Wall Street Journal assigned metro desk reporters, not reporters who normally covered science and nature topics to cover Flaco. Reporters treated the story as an urban phenomenon, rather than focusing on what was the right action to protect Flaco and the native species he would interact with.

How different would the reporting have been in The New York Times if the story had gotten covered by someone on the Science Times staff? We would have had real experts telling the truth about Flaco’s future outside of the zoo rather than a social media influencer shaping a self-serving narrative. It wouldn’t have been an upbeat story, but it would have put pressure on the zoo to recover Flaco.

The zoo, which only had an acting President after Cristián Samper’s departure, chose not to have a spokesperson present the zoo’s position and gain public support. Their employees are all under NDAs and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has a “don’t engage” policy regarding animal activists. Their only public comments before his death were three press releases and I believe one tweet from Robert G. “Robb” Menzi, then acting President of WCS. They quickly lost control of public opinion and doomed Flaco to an early death.

The crowds David Barrett sent to the first few rescues made it impossible to catch Flaco. Especially on the first real attempt to catch him on the Hechsher Ballfields. He would have been caught if it wasn’t for the public that was invited by David Barrett to come watch Flaco. Just before dusk with only five people watching Flaco’s roost, David Barrett sent a tweet with Flaco’s location and thirty people arrived within minutes and David Barrett continued to broadcast Flaco’s minute-by-minute location throughout the evening. If David Barrett was an ethical person, he would have asked people to avoid the ballfields to allow the WCS team to work. Instead, with crowds of people, Flaco only made one real attempt to come down to the traps, and by some bad luck managed to free himself from the trap. Later that night, he was seen catching his first rat making the future rescue efforts harder.

The next week at the last rescue attempt, a rehabber and the zoo staff were very, very close to capturing Flaco. The WCS had finally gotten an expert rehabber, who knew how to use audio recordings in addition to traps to capture Flaco. However, David Barrett baited a “Free Flaco” follower into harassing the rescue efforts and they had to be halted. This rehabber even got death threats!

So, the acting president of the zoo, Robert G. “Robb” Menzi, choose to halt all rescue efforts after only two weeks, against the advice of the Central Park Zoo staff. Clearly, public relations took precedence over science.

The public and the media believes that the zoo just gave up, because after beginning to hunt on his own, Flaco was too hard to catch. This is simply not true. He could have been caught up until he left Central Park.

I talked to the rehabber working to return Flaco to safety early that last evening. I asked him, “Whose side are you on, those who want Flaco to be free or the zoo?” His answer was perfect. He looked at me and said, “I’m on Flaco’s side.”

It’s too bad more of us hadn’t been on Flaco’s side.

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, General News, Owls

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Celebrity Bird Mythology

When I first started watching Pale Male and the Red-tailed Hawk nest at 927 Fifth Avenue in 2005, I had my first experience with a celebrity bird. I learned then that the public perception of Pale Male didn’t match his reality. Rather than observing Pale Male people wanted to repeat back what they had learned from Marie Winn’s book, Red-tails in Love or Frederic Lilien’s movies, Pale Male and The Legend of Pale Male.

I would observe Pale Male in Central Park’s Ramble drinking water and taking a bath and then walk to the “hawk bench”, which had a great view of 927 Fifth Avenue and the nearby buildings. When I would relay this information to Pale Male fans, I would often have people question my observations. Generally, these were people who only came to watch Pale Male a few weeks a year, and only from the hawk bench. They would say “hawks don’t drink water”. Hawks, especially eyasses on the nest, can get all the water they need from their food, but once off the nest, if given a chance they will drink water. But a group of folks had taken this to mean they don’t drink water at all, and believed it to gospel.

This happened with lots of other observation as well. It always frustrated me because I thought the greatest joy of watching Pale Male and his family was that we got to make direct observations year round of species and learn more than was ever possible just reading. Watching him was so great because every day was different, and I saw things I had never read about in books. For example, If a newly fledged offspring was being mobbed, Pale Male would come in and get the jays to go after him. Or how each year, he would hunt around the Alexander Hamilton statue in the fall after the apples began to fall as it attracted rodents. Or how he would be out of sight, but if his mate called for him to relieve her on the nest, he would quickly arrive and often have food.

These direct observations, and sharing and debating their meaning with others in person, was the joy of watching Pale Male.

I also learned early on that the folks crafting him public image, had a vested interest in molding his image. I created this blog, because Marie Winn who I had been sharing photographs for her Central Park Nature News website, refused to publish a wonderful series of photograph of Pale Male eating a Brown Rat. She said to me, “these pictures would upset my audience”. It was a nice lesson to learn. That folks who rode the coattails of a celebrity bird had a vested interest to only report the “bright side”.

Sadly, this “bright side” distortion and a failure of the general public to question the reporting, is occurring today. It is even worse now that the communications have shifted from blogs to social media.

When I got back from California in late November, I ran into a number that of people who said the reason Flaco left Central Park was because of crows and hawk. Of the any number of reasons Flaco left the park, this is low on the list.

I asked folks, why they thought this and they said they had read it on the Manhattan Bird alert. So, I looked at X. This is the set of posts from David Barrett.

I believe Mr. Barrett crafted a response to answer criticism of his reporting the roost locations of Flaco in the North Woods, rather than giving a scientifically based answer. I was in California on the two days Flaco returned to the park, but many experienced birders felt the crowds on both days bothered him, and might have contributed to his leaving the park again.

So, I’d like to give an alternative perspective.

  1. Flaco was harassed by many birds during his nine months of roosting in Central Park. Crows, Blue Jays, Red-tailed Hawks, Baltimore Orioles and Northern Mockingbirds among others. It was a daily occurrence, and quite natural. Flaco held his own in the face of these attacks. I doubt these attacks were ever the reason he shifted roosts. He’s an apex predator!
    As far as the Tennis Court roosts go, I think most of us who watched him during that period, saw Flaco be very aggressive with a Red-tailed Hawk who was working to claim the area. In the end, Flaco drove the hawk away, and once he did he returned to his preferred American Elm. So, it is more likely that Flaco forced the Red-tailed Hawk to relocate then the other way around.
  2. Flaco did and does get disturbed by human observers. David’s statement that he doesn’t is false. It’s common sense that birds and animals get disturbed by human observers. Everyone knows this. Birders work hard to minimize their impact. With owls it is common practice not to share their roosting locations publicly to protect the owls from being disturbed during the day. All of the true bird alerts run by the NYC community (rather than David Barrett’s self run Manhattan Bird Alert), have rules against reporting owl roost locations. (And why does Mr. Barrett use the royal “we”?)
    While it was possible to watch Flaco without disturbing him, there were many inexperienced or very aggressive owl watchers who did disturb him. You would see him be awoken midday and see his change in body posture. He also hated the off leash dogs people brought under his roosts. There was even a time where an observer took a stick to wake Flaco up so he could photograph him awake.
    Flaco’s returning to a roost location day after day, or any owl (such the Saw-whet Owl in Shakespeare Garden, Geraldine (Great Horned Owl) or Barry (Barred Owl) shouldn’t be used as a way to justify publicizing a roost location. Rationalizing irresponsible behavior by saying “Well if the owl didn’t like people, they would move”, doesn’t cut it. I doubt the subject of roost location has been studied well enough to determine the instinctual reasons why birds choose a specific roost and what makes them abandon a location.
  3. Why Flaco left the park most likely isn’t because he was being mobbed. If it really bothered him, he would have left months ago. There were a great number of factors to consider about why he left the park.

    a. As the days got shorter, a male Eurasian Eagle-Owl would become more focused on securing his territory, investigating to see if there was a competitor nearby, and looking for an appropriate nesting location. Early November was the perfect time for these instincts to be awakened in Flaco. His looking for a mate would start a bit later. Central Park doesn’t have a suitable nest location for Flaco.
    Eurasian Eagle-Owls don’t build nests. They use cliffs, take over other raptor nests, and in some very rural locations nest on the ground. In European cities, they have nested on Cathedrals and in one case even used someone’s flower box.
    So, after Flaco discovered quiet gardens and the backs of buildings to roost on during his first trip away from the park, and after coming back for two days with his regular roosts surrounded by noisy people and being mobbed by birds, he may have realized his best options was to roost in a quiet block, but still stay close to Central Park where he can still hunt. Many of us hope that he continues to roost near Central Park, and then hunt in the park, where the rodents are less likely to have rodenticide.

    But since Flaco is an exception to the rule, it is hard to know what he’s doing. Will he take longer trips away, say to other areas of Manhattan, when it is closer to his time to mate? We just have to wait and see.

    b. The trees were just starting to lose their leaves when Flaco left, and by now his regular root trees are bare. This could have made the park less attractive than it was this summer. (Update 12/20/23: Another factor may be the windy weather. Flaco has been roosting in light wells on the back of buildings on both the Upper East and Upper West Sides. These might be giving him protection from the wind and be warmer as the temperatures drop rather than roosting in a tree without leaves.)

    c. As Flaco becomes more used to his environment, he should start behaving more and more like a wild Eurasian Eagle-Owl rather than a feral bird. Central Park is 3.41 km2 and Manhattan is 59 km2 in size. Scientific studies about Eurasian Eagle-Owl territory sizes are limited but the Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity has an excellent open access paper, Analysis of Home Range of Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) by WT-100. The home ranges varied from 4.2 km2 to 39.1 km2 for the owls studied in the paper. So, we should have expected Flaco to expand his range beyond Central Park’s 3.41 km2. There didn’t need to be any reason he left Central Park, other than it was a smaller territory than would have been natural for an Eurasian Eagle-Owl.

Flaco is becoming much harder to find these days. His was seen just inside the park on Saturday night, and was seen the previous two Saturday’s along Central Park West. He has gone undetected on many days. When and if he returns to roosting in the park, we should take care not to love him too much.