Flaco’s release by a vandal over two months ago was a surprise to everyone. Even more surprising was how well he did adjusting to living outside of his cage in an urban New York City park. To most New Yorker’s and the media, this was a wonderful tale of how a bird having lived in captivity could become “free” and thrive in the Big Apple.

Unfortunately, this over simplifies what has happened. I have a number of concerns that I wish would be discussed in the media and by the fans of Flaco.

My first concern is the normalization of discussing the whereabouts of a roosting owl and the anthrourophorizing of a feral bid. Flaco’s location is being publicized daily on Twitter. While you can make a case that “he is used to people” and that having crowds come see him doesn’t bother him, it seems hypocritical to celebrate that “he’s now a wild bird” but then treat his as though he’s still in a zoo.

It also is teaching new birders that it is fine to broadcast on social media where an owl is roosting or nesting. I know of now place other than Manhattan where this behavior is tolerated by the local birding community.

I also am concerned that the “groupthink” that he’s now happier prevents any scientific rather than emotional evaluation of what is best for Flaco and the other wildlife in his current territory.

Is Flaco actually better off being outside of the zoo? While he is eating on his own, and not at risk of starving, he’s not in a natural place for Eurasian Eagle-Owl. He’s hunting primarily in a construction site and at three dumpsters at a storage site for compost and building materials. He will also never have a chance to interact with another of his species. While Central Park isn’t a cage, it certainly isn’t a natural habitat. It is densely populated with traffic and has prey contaminated with rodenticides. While it might not be wise to return him to his cage at the Central Park Zoo, is there a sanctuary that would be a better place for him to live than in Central Park?

Over the last two weeks, Flaco has begun to chase and harass birds and bats flying during the night. Flaco is beginning to change the behavior of native birds in the Northeast corner of Central Park. While it’s nice to celebrate Flaco’s freedom from a small cage, is it fair to have him impact the native birds in a rich 20 acres ecosystem of the northeast section of the park?

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which oddly had a publicist on hand the night of his release, has simply abandoned Flaco. The decision seems to be driven by publicists and bureaucrats wanting to avoid negative press rather than a scientific choice by ornithologists. As much as I’m fascinated by Flaco’s behavior, there are times I want to yell, “Wildlife Conservation Society, please claim your lost property.” I’m surprised the NYC DEC hasn’t required the WCS to work harder to recover him.

I watched Flaco during the last afternoon and early evening on Friday and in the late evening on Saturday. Friday was a very normal flout and on Saturday, I caught up with him after he had been in the construction site. Other observers thought he had eaten there. When I arrived he hooted and then watched the rats near a set of dumpsters for over an hour before flying off out of sight.

Tonight, after fly out the Eurasian Eagle-Owl went to three trees and then stayed within the construction site. It was a major change from previous nights where he hooted for hours before hunting. It had rained the previous night and it was possible that with the bad weather his priority was hunting. We didn’t see him catch anything, but I did get to see him on construction equipment twice, something I had missed on previous nights.

Based on the experiences of the last week, it looks like Flaco is either hunting directly after fly out or waiting until around midnight when the park settles down before the 1 am closure.

He’s been seen on lampposts this last week, which is something I hadn’t seen much of before. He also seems to be more focused on flying bats and birds at night. Often appearing to chase after them.

Flaco had been out of the zoo for two months on Sunday night It’s been fascinating to watch him acclimate to life outside of his zoo cage. He surprised everyone by how well he’s been doing adjusting to life in the wild. He’s carved out a niche for himself in the north end of Central Park, and has fallen into a fairly consistent routine.

This next month will be an interesting time to watch him. The trees are going to be leafing out and we will have numerous spring migrants arriving. How theses changes impact him, and how he impacts our spring arrivals and nesting birds will be what I’ll be studying this month.

On Sunday night, Flaco flew all around the north end of the park for at least an hour. The three of us watching him certainly got our “steps in”. Eventually he settled down and parked himself on a small mound opposite a dumpster, but flew off when a park truck came to offload some recyclables.

Later he flew to a Black Locust and after about fifteen minutes, flew across the East Drive and onto a small lawn. We thought he was just going there to hunt, but he had caught a small rodent, either a White-Footed Mouse or an immature Brown Rat. It was only when he started to eat it, did we realize he had caught something he had seen 100 yards away.

We had invited two police officers to watch with us, and two of their colleagues joined us. They all got to see Flaco eat and fly off, via a monitor mounted on my tripod. They were excited to see Flaco, and they shared news that they had seen a coyote earlier in the evening.

After dinner, I caught up with Flaco, Central Park’s Eurasian Eagle-Owl. He was hooting from a Black Locust, the Snowy Owl used over two years ago. He was holding a half-eaten Brown Rat. He was in no rush to finish off the rodent, and hooted from a few trees, moving between them every so often. Occasionally we heard a hoot with a different pitch, and after looking at the video feed realized it was because he would sometime hoot with the rat in his mouth, which altered the note.

Eventually, he finished off his meal. When we left the park, he appeared to have begun hunting yet again.

His hooting was a few blocks away from the Red-tailed Hawk nest on the Museum of the City of New York and we wondered what the Red-tailed Hawk pair thought about the presence of the owl.