The owl who got his own exhibition

It is nearly a year since the death of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped from his enclosure in Central Park and experienced a year of freedom, to the delight of New Yorkers and many from much further afield. The obvious reason for Flaco’s demise was his crashing into a building on the Upper West Side, but the autopsy pointed to underlying causes that would have got him anyway: high levels of rat poison were found in his blood, and he was also suffering from a ‘severe herpesvirus’ contracted from eating the local pigeons.

Flaco Stretching His Wings, Pre-Flyout Routine, Rumsey Playfield (15 February 2023), David Lei. Courtesy David Lei

Your roving correspondent is not the only Flaco-fancier who noted, while he was still alive, that the fugitive owl appealed to a collective longing for freedom and some of our most utopian instincts. It is entirely possible that he was, for a time, the most popular figure in Manhattan.

Drawing with note left at Flaco memorial (2024). Photo: Glenn Castellano; courtesy Friends of Flaco

On 7 February, the New York Historical opened an exhibition about Flaco. The owl was the subject of much photographic interest, so there are plenty of opportunities to admire just how photogenic he was. Some of the most powerful artefacts on display are the notes people left at the memorial that was tended for three weeks after his tragic end and have been acquired by the museum as part of its History Responds Collecting Initiative. Although the take-home message from the story of Flaco might be that city pigeons really are the worst, let us take a more elevated stance and agree with one well-wisher’s message: ‘I know you’re flying high eternally now.’

Flaco on an Upper West Side Fire Escape (27 November 2023), David Barrett. Courtesy David Barrett