{"id":190607,"date":"2024-02-24T11:05:35","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T16:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=190607"},"modified":"2024-02-25T08:36:32","modified_gmt":"2024-02-25T13:36:32","slug":"r-i-p-flaco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=190607","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P. Flaco"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nPhoto: David Lei, via Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n

\nNew Yorkers are in mourning for Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl, who has been living his best life in the Upper West Side ever since being “freed” from the zoo by some probably well-meaning vandal who slashed his cage. The Flaco sightings have been an amazing bonding experience for the city. He was spotted here, there, people posting pics, people gathering around, keeping a safe distance, but marveling at his beauty, his ferocious eyes, his glamorous appearance. There was a lot of concern, of course, about how he would fare out in the wild. I mean, he IS an apex predator, so you assume he knows his way around, but still: he’s been in a zoo. And now he has to navigate Manhattan. He was seen on various nocturnal murder sprees, surrounded by the carnage of his hunts, and people relaxed. He knew what to do. He’s got this. A number of the Twitter feeds I follow are bird-watching accounts – they’re lovely and soothing, and the “Here’s Flaco!” posts were always exciting. People would post: “I SAW FLACO TODAY” and post some amazing picture of his fierce terrifying face peering out from a tree in Central Park. <\/p>\n

Flaco, a King of the Sky, flew into a building last night. There’s something very emotional to see so many people mourning an owl, having room in their hearts to mourn his passing, to celebrate his life. A beautiful owl who would show up on people’s terraces randomly, sometimes even peeking through their windows!! – or be seen perched in a tree in the park, or on top of a water tower, during his year of freedom. And people would post pics to social media, and the comments would all be about how beautiful he was, and New Yorkers hoping they could see him and people from Egypt and Moscow and wherever else chiming in about how gorgeous he was and how jealous they were, they wanted to see him too. Life – and people – are sometimes like this. <\/p>\n

The NY Times obituary for Flaco<\/a> is unexpectedly moving. Like this: <\/p>\n

One poignant aspect of Flaco\u2019s Manhattan life was that, as a nonnative species, he was destined never to find a mate. That did not stop him from trying, sometimes hooting into the post-midnight darkness for hours to establish his territory and declare his interest in breeding.<\/p>\n

Flaco\u2019s last reported hoots were heard from a water tower on West 86th Street east of Columbus Avenue at 3 a.m. last Sunday, according to David Barrett\u2019s Manhattan Bird Alert account on social media.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rest in peace, Flaco. You were a blessing. <\/p>\n

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\nPhoto: David Lei’s Instagram<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Photo: David Lei, via Associated Press New Yorkers are in mourning for Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl, who has been living his best life in the Upper West Side ever since being “freed” from the zoo by some probably well-meaning vandal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190607"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190607"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190623,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190607\/revisions\/190623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}