It was a fairly normal afternoon with Flaco on Tuesday. He’s been going to a new hunting spot in the evenings, one that has been popular with our other Bubo’s, the Snowy Owl two years ago and our resident Great Horned Owl.

The rain held off on Thursday afternoon and evening, so I was able to spend about seven hours with him. He seems to explore his territory for about an hour before settling down. Last night, he patiently sat on the ground for hours. I suspect that with the abundant rodent population of the park, he can spend a lot of time just “hanging out”.

After fly out he spent time in the construction site before heading south.

When I arrived at Flaco’s roost on Monday afternoon, a friend came up to me and said “He’s been eating a rat!”. I learned that while I was away on a few days, he’s been bringing a Brown Rat to his roost to nibble on throughout the day.

I saw him with the lower half of the rat mid-afternoon, which he took a few bites of around 3:00 p.m. but he waited until after 6 p.m. to finish eating it. It’s nice to see him eat in a relaxed way. During the early days of him hunting, he would eat the rats whole and quickly primarily on the ground.

I’ve been in southern Africa for two weeks, and returned on Friday. I got a chance to see Flaco briefly on Saturday and for a few hours on Sunday. He was using a perch he used before I left and after fly out, went into the construction area of the new rink/pool. It was nice to see that he’s settled down into a routine.

I was able to make to see Flaco one more time before going on my trip. He was in The Loch hooting by a waterfall when I arrived. He explored a few trees at fly out and got chased by a Red-tailed Hawk. It was interesting in that the two birds, ended up making a Great Blue Heron fly out of The Loch. It was fun to have all three at once.

Flaco, as he’s been doing, went to the construction site. I had to leave but heard that he caught and ate a rat on a mound of dirt.

I’m about to go on vacation for two weeks, so this might be my last Flaco post for awhile. It’s been great to watch Flaco do much better than expected and survive for a month in Central Park. I would have preferred that he had captured and sent to a facility with a flight cage, but that now looks unlikely.

Tonight, he hooted for a long time from a conifer, before jumping between a few branches. Out of the blue, a Red-tailed Hawk knocked him off his perch. It happened in about a second. I suspect has we get closer to having the hawks nest, they will become even more agressive.

Flaco then moved to the Harlem Meer Pool/Rink construction site, then to a tree above the drive, and swooped down into the site but appeared to continue flying. We then couldn’t relocate him. He is now comfortable flying long distances, which makes him much harder to track.