Flaco — the eagle owl that united so many of us

By Caitlin Kelly

His name was Flaco, and he was a Eurasian eagle owl, his feathers the most glorious mix of black, rust and sienna, his distinctive ear tufts sometimes blowing sideways in the Manhattan wind. His eyes were brilliant yellow, his talons impressive. He was beautiful and ferocious — and very much out of his natural habitat.

We all feared the day it might kill him, as it did when he recently flew into a window on the upper East Side, one of many birds who die such a terrible death.

Flaco was born and raised in captivity, but set free a year ago from the Central Park Zoo by a vandal who cut the wires of his cage. Thus began an adventure shared, thanks to social media, with many fans worldwide, as Flaco flew onto construction sites, water towers, apartment balconies — all the familiar landmarks of the city.

Can you imagine finding him perched on your balcony? It was a true celebrity sighting!

He was much photographed, allowing his many admirers on social media — I saw him daily on Twitter — to cheer him on as he swooped high above urban towers, finding rats and pigeons for his diet. Whether asleep or taking flight or in flight, or gently hooting above all the city noise, he became a somehow comforting presence in a time when everything we see on the news — Gaza, Darfur, Ukraine, the election, climate change — is so relentlessly awful and depressing and overwhelming. Flaco was gorgeous and free and someone we could all cheer for without reservation, profess our admiration for without fear of rancor or argument.

He was also an introduction to bird life in a way us non-birders never appreciated — asleep, preening, spreading his wings, spitting out the remains of a mouse or rat. The many excellent photos of him allowed us a detailed view of avian life.

The New York Times recently ran a large article about him, to the delight of all his fans — and the photographers who tracked him so carefully:

obsessed Flaco fans scoured the internet to find out more about his past, learning that he hatched on March 15, 2010, at the Sylvan Heights Bird Park in Scotland Neck, N.C. He apparently had younger and older siblings named Gertrude, Salazar, Stan, Morrisey, Boston and Thatcher; and his parents, Xena and Watson, were the offspring, respectively, of Martina and Sinbad, and Nyra and Ezra — owls who traced their lineage back to Eurasian eagle-owls from Europe. The German-born photographer Anke Frohlich noted that some New Yorkers identified with Flaco as a fellow immigrant, another outsider who learned to live as “a stranger in a strange land.”

This, too:

The owl, once described by a frequent zoo visitor as a grumpy and slightly pudgy bird, reinvented himself as New York’s most majestic raptor — the “Prince of the city,” as the dancer Heather Watts put it, who has become a captivating symbol of freedom, resilience and the possibility of renewal.

Then — maybe a first for the Times — a front page obituary:

Ruben Giron, 73, a registered nurse who lives on 112th Street, said he had wept Saturday morning when he heard the news.

“He’s a symbol of just enjoying being out and letting the sun hit you,” he said. “It’s a heart-opening experience of what it means to be free.”

He added: “We’re all figuring out how to live life. That’s what we’re doing, and he did it.”

He will be very much missed.