On Tuesday night, I arrived late after watching Chimney Swifts to find that Flaco had gone directly to the construction site for the new rink/pool. He didn’t do much. He perched on Caterpillar machine and then a tree.
The North Meadow is switching from Baseball to Soccer and after fly out Flaco was reported to be exploring the new goals. I arrived afterwards, although I had seen him briefly in the afternoon. While I was with him, he calmly stayed on a backstop, with the Tribute in Lights shining behind him. Later he finally took off and I found him on a streetlight over the West Drive.
Flaco spent his first few hours after fly out, within 75 yards of his roost site on Wednesday night. It was unexpected as he has been flying much further to hunt in the last few days. He went to the ground a few times and event went inside a bush looking for rodents twice, where he caught one on the second try.
On Thursday night, Flaco quickly flew to the construction site for the new rink/pool. He perched on a variety of contraction machines and a railing above the site.
I arrived late on Wednesday, only to find that Flaco was in no rush to fly out for the evening. He had cached a rodent on his roost and had eaten it during the day, so I guess he felt he could get some extra shut eye.
He explored the ball fields and then caught a Brown Rat nearby, and then returned to the ball fields to eat.
Tuesday was a wonderful night to observe Flaco, but it was also a frustrating night, as the gates to the North Meadow were left open instead of being closed at dusk. This meant lots of folks ended up flushing Flaco moving him around and disrupting his hunting and eating.
When Flaco was able to catch a Brown Rat, he didn’t kill it immediately. It was almost as though he was surprised it was still alive. (Cats will play with prey, but I don’t think this was the case here. I think Flaco might have been more concerned with figuring out how to safely kill the rat without getting bitten.)
He ended up having folks disrupt him multiple times while trying to eat and once had to leave his prey. He waited 45 minutes before returning for it. Even after midnight, he hadn’t been able to eat much of it.
