Saturday night with Flaco was mostly confined to “his meadow”. It’s a triangle of a lawn, that is locked from dusk to dawn and is a perfect are to hunt in. He took his time and was in no rush to eat dinner. After an hour, he caught a rat and ate it.
For a few days, Flaco had been keeping his right, lower eyelid closed often. As of Monday evening, the issue seems to have resolved.
On Thursday night, Flaco was only tracked to one tree before we lost track of him. A group of owl watchers searched for him, but he couldn’t be relocated. This happens when watching owls. You have easy nights and frustrating nights.
On Wednesday, Flaco flew out calmly and then basically did very little until the park closed at 1 am. He flew to a number of trees in the locked meadow he’s been using and that was it. We’ve had nights like this before so it wasn’t unusual, but it was a bit dull.
The area he’s hunting in now has a feral cat. My reaction to seeing the cat was that while it seemed to be getting plenty to eat, it shouldn’t be in the park and should be rescued. Seeing the cat made me wonder why and how public sentiment around Flaco became that he should be allowed to stay free.
At fly out, Flaco went to a tree with a Red-tailed Hawk who was about to go to roost. The hawk left the tree and flew south. Flaco then proceeded to hoot for a few minutes, as if to say “This tree is mine”. He then went cross the drive but eventually ended up further south.
He was relocated after about thirty minutes on a small rock. He then proceeded to catch a brown rat and eat it on the ground. After eating he went to a fence to digest his meal and then few north. We then couldn’t relocate him.
After having Flaco for most of Sunday night, on Monday we only saw him briefly after fly out.
He seemed agitated at fly out. He crossed the 96th Street road that joins with the main transverse east, and then crossed the West Drive to a high tree. He spent most of his time looking east before flying in the direction of the Tennis Courts. He then went southwest and we lost track of him. I saw him briefly about a half hour later flying north but couldn’t see where he perched.
But this is owl watching. You have good nights and bad nights.
What’s unclear is if this was just a one night change or a signal of a change in habits. He has changed his roost locations over the last week, so we could be seeing the start of a new set of hunting locations. Or it could have just been an off night.
Watching owls takes patience, but most importantly it requires you to do your best to stay out of the owl’s way. After six months, I wouldn’t say Flaco trusts me, but he does seem to know he can ignore me!
Tonight, after a noisy crowd that came to watch the fly out dispersed, Flaco was able to catch his first rodent. Then he sat on one of his favorite branches for what seemed like forever. At this point the other owl watchers, even the hard core ones, gave up on him and went home.
To my delight, and maybe because I was by myself, he then gave me over two hours of close looks in a brightly lit area. He spent over on hour on a fence near to a lamp post and hunted three more times. He only got interrupted three times, once by someone walking their dog, and twice by police cars. I did my best to keep my distance, but twice he flew very close to me.
I had a wonderful time with him on Sunday night. I’ve included a short video of him eating one rodent, most likely a White-footed Mouse. On the longer video, the rodents are at 1:19, 2:50, 10:10 and 13:40.
