About a year ago, a eurasian owl named Flaco escaped from the Central Park Zoo. He became an instant celebrity. For days zoo workers and wildlife specialists tried to capture him to bring him back, but he had none of it. He didn’t know how to hunt and they were worried for his survival. Would he know how to avoid cars, could he really find food? Of course, he did great. New Yorkers kept a keen eye on him, always watching for him in trees, during his brief stint on the Lower East Side, which when you’re young and really want to find out about the world, is the best place to go, and then finally during his return to the Upper West Side, the neighborhood we both call home.
I loved being his neighbor. So it’s hard to express how hurt I was to hear the news this morning that he died yesterday. He collided with a building on W89th St. All I could picture was this hefty beautiful giant of a bird face down on the dirty pavement of the city. I scrolled through the news and cried. I know I’m not alone in saying that Flaco meant a lot to me. More than I realized until the other night when I no could no longer hear him.
I live not far from where he died. In fact, he and I lived so close that every night around 6:30 I’d hear his first hoot of the evening. Flaco had clocked in and was starting his evening right as I was winding mine down. Sometimes his hoots would be distant and echo through the entire west side. Other times he was just a few rooftops down and was so loud that I couldn’t hear my tv. I’d stop what I was doing, run over to the window like a giddy child and open the window as far as I could and look for him. But mostly, I’d just listen.
Flaco was an incredible owl. Eurasion-eagle owls as they’re called (also bubo-bupo which if you say this with an Italian accent is even cuter), are one of the largest species of owls. The females are the largest and can grow to almost 3ft and their wingspans are longer than most men are tall. Nearly 6’2.
So many of us love Flaco’s story. The great escape from confinement from the structure of society. He said screw this and got out. And you know what? He did just fine for himself. After all there are something like 8 billion rats in NYC and tons of pigeons. That might be the owl equivalent of eating McDonalds every night but he did great. We loved his freedom for him. We loved that he managed to get out and not go back. We love this idea for ourselves which is one reason why we loved him so much. The symbol of Flaco, his piercing orange eyes, fierce and powerful, refusing to be confined to a life he was “supposed to” have.
We all dream about becoming free in some form or another—freedom means something different to everyone, but when we imagine the feeling, it’s what we saw in Flaco’s spread out wings, in his loud hoots, and in his natural determination to call out for a partner in a city with very slim pickings. He did not give up, what’s not to love about that?
I also admit that I identified with him in the way humans do when they see themselves in everything. But Flaco and I are made from the same starstuff so I’m not that far off. I’d also once escaped captivity, found freedom and refused to go back. I started my life over. Not many people thought I could hunt either, or that I would survive. Whenever I heard him start to hoot, it was a reminder, a hoot in solidarity with a fellow escapee. “Hell yeah you sing it Flaco!”,“We’re freeeee!!” I’d say to him in my head. Sometimes he was even so loud he’d wake me up in the middle of the night. I felt bad for him when it was so late, so dark outside, so lonely. He was calling out for a mate, the same way Blue52, the saddest whale, did for decades, searching the depths of the Pacific Ocean for another blue whale to mate with.
I felt shook up all day and couldn’t figure out why. Was it really all about Flaco? I realized, I counted on him every night. I got to used to his presence, to his sounds, to the new photos of him every day from the birders. Then suddenly, he was gone. Being reminded that things we love and become familiar with are not promised to stay, is a constant and painful lesson we all learn over and over. I just thought this time, this one being, would still be there.
Flaco didn’t know he had the most loving fan club. New Yorkers and even people across the country loved the idea of this rogue bird, giving a figurative middle finger to the man, aka, the Central Park zoo. I loved that about him too. In Greek mythology owls are connected to the goddess Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Flaco was wise to get away and have a tear through the best city in the world while he could. I also, a human, relate to that.
I will miss him so much. In fact as I’m writing this it’s about the time he’d start to sing. But, it’s silent out there. I’d be shutting down my computer from the work day, getting dinner ready and there he was, every night, shouting to the entire Upper West Side that he was still here, he was still free. My hope is that he had a wonderful time during the year he was out. I hope he had the tastiest birds and rats and maybe even a fish or two from the Hudson. I hope he enjoyed the silence of New York City in the middle of a winters night. I hope he loved how it felt to fly. I hope he knew, somehow, that we loved him.
I hope I never forget the sounds he made, that powerful, confident, tender song that traveled and brushed the upper west side rooftops, swirled in through our windows, and hovered next to us, hooting in tandem with the beating of our hearts.
Rest in peace, Flaco.