A full moon never fails to swell my emotions. I was already in bed preparing for sleep mode on Friday night when I checked my phone for the last time. The moon outside was bright and rising, expected to reach its peak in the early hours of Saturday morning. I scrolled through my inbox, grabbed by the subject line of an email from the New York Times:
Breaking news: Flaco, escaped Central Park Zoo owl, is dead
First things first: I am neither a birder nor a bird lover. In fact, anyone who knows me knows that I do not like birds.
Secondly, I had never heard of Flaco before last Friday.
This was an unusual breaking news story. I double-checked the subject line to make sure I had read the words correctly. With everything going on in the world, why on earth would a dead zoo owl make headlines, especially in such a prestigious outlet?
The story I was about to read, of an extraordinary life and death (Flaco, I discovered, was dubbed “the most famous owl in the world”—clearly I do not read enough news) took me by surprise, but it was the images of the bird that stunned me at first.
Before last Friday, when I thought of an owl, my imagination was limited to a stereotype: a wise old bird with glasses. The only famous owl I knew of was the fictional Hedwig, Harry Potter’s snowy companion. Reality, in my experience, is far greater than fiction. I never saw Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl in person, but I could see from the pictures and videos that he was unlike any owl, or any bird for that matter. Shockingly wild and absurdly beautiful, the apex predator has been described with superlatives ranging from “majestic” to “magnificent.”
His epic life story, for those who don’t know, is as follows:
Flaco spent his first thirteen years in a small enclosure in Central Park Zoo. One night in February 2023, a vandal, or an activist, (they were never caught so no reason has been found) cut a hole in the steel wire of his cage. Some saw his captivity as cruel, others saw it as protection.
Flaco escaped and before long was seen hanging out on the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue near Bergdorf Goodman. The NYPD arrived and attempted to coax him into a pet carrier. They were unsuccessful, and Flaco flew off. Having lived his whole life in a cage, he had not developed the muscle power to fly more than a couple of blocks. The resourceful fellow found a tree branch to settle on outside the Plaza Hotel.
News of this intriguing escapade reached far and wide (somehow, I managed to miss it) and after two weeks of trying to recapture him, the authorities gave up and agreed to let him fend for himself.
In true New Yorker form and against all odds, Flaco quickly adapted to his limitless surroundings. He thrived in the wild, mastering the art of flight and teaching himself to hunt and feed on Central Park’s plentiful rat population. Sightings of the enormous bird with a wingspan of six feet were described as awe-inspiring and glorious. He became a local celebrity and tourist attraction with a devoted fanbase. The loose beauty was followed around and encircled by an ever-present crowd of gawpers pointing their long lenses at him.
Around Halloween last year, Flaco ventured out of the park and toured the city, making appearances all the way downtown in an East Village sculpture garden before returning uptown to peer into apartment windows from air conditioning units and fire escapes, his intense flaming eyes delighting and frightening residents. Many heard him hooting after dark from water towers and rooftops, speculating that he was lonely and in search of a mate. He would never find one as there are no other Eurasian eagle-owls in New York. Flaco was the only wild owl of his kind in the United States.
After just over a year of freedom, Flaco met his tragic end on the eve of a full moon, colliding into a building on the Upper West Side. He landed in a courtyard and was still moving when residents found him splayed out face down on the ground. By the time rescuers from the Wild Bird Fund arrived, he was pronounced dead.
There was an outpouring of grief as mourners gathered and honored him. Opinions were divided—some blamed the vandals who enabled his escape from the zoo. Others felt he deserved liberation, despite the risk and challenges he faced after a life in captivity. Such was the price of his freedom.
Flaco was beloved and meant something to many, whether as a muse, a form of therapy, a beacon of hope, or simply an icon. People were rooting for him, the underdog, a lone wolf of the skies. Some hailed him a hero.
Two days after his death, a mural painted by street artist Calicho Arevalo that depicts Flaco towering over the New York skyline was defaced. The artist rushed to the site of his work and restored it, vowing to protect the bird’s legacy.
The news of Flaco’s death stirred my emotions, already heightened by the full moon.
My dislike of birds started when I was 8 years old. I was at boarding school in England, and one day, my best friend and I took a walk around the grounds. A new sports building had just been erected and a starling had crashed into one of the windows. My friend was the first to spot the dead bird. Seeing the carcass up close was disturbing. A living being that could fly, now deformed and dead on the ground. Unfazed, my friend lifted the lifeless body by its wing.
There it was—swinging in my face—Death.
Something about that moment formed a crack in my psyche. I burst into tears and ran away as if my life depended on it. Once back inside the safety of my dormitory, I lay down on the bed. It was my first encounter with this mysterious thing I did not understand but now knew to be true: Death was real and coming for all of us. There was no knowing when or how, or what would happen afterward, if anything. But it was going to happen. It was simply a matter of time.
Since that day at boarding school, many lives that have touched mine, both humans and animals, are no more. I have accepted that death is a part of life, that nothing lasts forever and everything must come to an end.
One day, all who saw and loved Flaco during his lifetime will be gone. The question is, will his legacy live on through art: will the restored mural I visited after his death be whitewashed and painted over, will these very words disappear into the ether?
The same can be asked of how we choose to live our own lives. After our deaths, how much of us will remain before all traces vanish?
Wow. I really enjoyed that. You transported me. I have so many feelings about Flaco and how it applies to my life. Thoughtfully told. Thank you!
Flaco’s story becomes universal through the writer’s ability to intertwine his with her own. She flashes back to her childhood and dislike of birds. It is the fear of death and the disappearance of self that becomes the issue.