Birders

Flaco inspired a devoted following in New York City and beyond after his escape from the Central Park Zoo a year ago.
Credit: David Lei/David Lei, via Associated Press

Pjetar Nikac has been the superintendent at 267 West 89th Street, an eight-story apartment building near Riverside Park, for 30 years. What happened there Friday made it a day he wouldn’t forget. Mr. Nikac was returning from a trip to the store at around 5 p.m. when he noticed an object on the ground in the building’s courtyard space. “I thought it was a rock,” he said. “I came closer and I saw: Owl.” Mr. Nikac knew immediately that it was not just any owl, but Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl who just three weeks ago passed the one-year mark of living in the relative wilds of Manhattan.

Although he was still alive when Mr. Nikac found him and, with Alan Drogin, a birder and building resident, rushed to get him help, Flaco was soon pronounced dead.

He said he was not sure how exactly Flaco died, but that when he reviewed security footage from Friday evening, it briefly showed the bird falling, fast, and jostling the camera.

“He was so beautiful,” Mr. Nikac recalled.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/24/nyregion/flaco-eurasian-eagle-owl-nyc.html