I arrived after the Eurasian Eagle-Owl had flown out to find him on a pile of compost. He then flew to a tree and quickly caught a rat behind one of the dumpsters. He mantled it for a few seconds before flying off to a hill, where he had to kill it. Tonight we heard two squeals, once when he caught the rate and once when he killed it.

After about ten minutes, he flew to a nearby tree where you could see him with a loose feather. (He began molting last week.) He continued to one of the Black Locusts before flying to another Black Locust with a good horizontal branch for eating. He then spent 40 minutes eating most of the rat.

He then went to a compost pile in the nursery changing positions a few times, but seemed uninterested in finish the rat. At that point it was late, and I left for the evening.

The video contains about 30 minutes of Flaco eating.

Flaco has begun using the construction site after fly out again.

The compost heap had lots of work done to clean up the site. It’s unclear if all the commotion of the clean up, a dropping rodent population, a desire to spend the beginning of the evening without humans or some other factors are the cause for his change in habits.

Last night I watched Flaco hunt at the compost heap. While the photographs of him look wonderful, the environment is far from it. He’s hunting in at three dumpsters in the middle of a staging site for the construction of the new rink/pool. I’m pointing this out because on social media, Flaco’s freedom continues to be celebrated as though he is living a full life. He’s living a different life than when he was in the zoo, but it’s now at a dump site, in an urban park. Far from a full life.

There are nights that with cloud cover, a moon and the city’s light pollution it is easy to photograph Flaco. On Friday night that wasn’t the case. It was dark!

He did another nice hunting run and ended up flying around with a Brown Rat.

After a brief period of Flaco exploring the area around the Compost Heap and Green Bench, he settled down on an excavator, before ending up in a tree for over an hour. It had rained and this interrupted is normal routine.

Flaco’s hunting skills have noticeably improved in recent weeks. When he started hunting months ago, he would pounce on his prey. Over the last week, I’ve seen him make three wonderful passes at Brown Rats, where he catches the rat and keeps flying. He swoops down, you see him catch the rodent, hear a squeal, and he then flies to tree with a level branch to eat without ever needing to be on the ground. He’s doing this while weaving through fences and bushes.