Skinny the owl is a voyeur.
The Big Apple’s most famous feathered fugitive has taken to spying on his fellow Manhattanites through their apartment windows, less than a year after leaving the Central Park Zoo.
But the residents are not crying, rather they are delighting in their unusual visitor, at least once the initial shock wears off.
“It absolutely scared me you know what,” Reilly Richardson, 31, told the Wall Street Journal after seeing Flaco’s bright orange eyes recently staring out the window of his Manhattan apartment for three consecutive mornings.
“I hope he comes back,” he told the Journal. “It was a really fun three days.”
Digital marketer Matt Sweeney told the outlet that he “gasped” when he got an aerial view of the great horned owl while sitting at his desk in his third-floor Upper West Side apartment.
Flaco, the great horned owl that escaped from the Central Park Zoo in February, has developed a habit of peering into the windows of New Yorkers’ apartments. @BirdCentralPark/Twitter
“It was pretty fascinating,” Sweeney said.
Since escaping from the zoo in February with the help of some vandals, Flaco had taken up residence in and around Central Park, topping the list of the area’s notable bird inhabitants and making headlines around the world.
City residents and tourists alike flock to areas where it has reportedly been spotted, hoping to see it going about its daily routine, including feasting on rats.
Stella Hamilton, a nurse who lives near Central Park, told the Journal that she has taken daily walks to visit Flaco’s last known whereabouts. She even took a taxi to the East Village about six miles from her house after receiving an alert that she had been seen in the area.
He arrived just in time to see Flaco take flight from a tree branch to a nearby rooftop, looking at his crowd of gathered admirers as he landed.
“It seemed like his look had meaning,” Hamilton told the outlet.
“You again?” she said, imagining the bird’s inner monologue. “How did you find me?”
Karla Bloem, executive director of the International Owl Center, told The Post that Flaco’s seeking a point of view aligns with his natural instincts. Corbis via Getty Images
Flaco was seen again about two days later, this time on the Lower East Side, by psychologist Robin Herbst-Paparne. The resident said he was enjoying some quality time on the couch with a book and her cat, Lucy Goose, when she heard a loud bang outside her window.
Herbst-Paparne said that’s when she saw Flaco cooling his claws in his air conditioner, “looking at the horizon,” he told the Journal.
“I think he was just enjoying city life,” the resident said.
Karla Bloem, executive director of the International Owl Center, told The Post on Monday that Skinny seeking a vantage point atop a window air conditioning unit more than a dozen stories above the ground aligns with the bird’s natural instincts. .
“Eagle owls often nest on cliffs, and I guess if you’re in an urban jungle, air conditioning units on the sides of tall buildings are the closest thing to that instinctive search for a possible nesting site on cliffs. . ” she wrote in an email.
As for Flaco’s new spy habit, Bloem said the bird’s captive breeding means it probably isn’t afraid of humans and could simply be “watching people, looking for potential mates, watching pets in apartments or who Know what”.
“Owls are curious, like cats,” he said.
Although Flaco’s behavior can mostly be attributed to instinctive behavior and curiosity, Bloem said there’s a chance he’s so used to humans that he seeks one out as a mate, which could lead to an awkward encounter.
Flaco has attracted international attention since his escape, and New Yorkers have closely followed his exploits. @NYPD19Pct/Twitter
“Then it may try to perch on people’s heads to copulate,” he said, citing an escaped eagle owl in the Netherlands that earned the nickname “cuddly owl” that way.
In his time on the run, Flaco has routinely traveled from Central Park to all of Manhattan, being seen everywhere from Alphabet City and the Lower East Side to the entire uptown area.
The 13-year-old owl appears to have a penchant for the good life, with sightings reported in a tree outside the Plaza Hotel and atop the iconic 241 Central Park West apartment building.
Less than three weeks after his escape, Central Park Zoo officials abandoned their recovery attempt, but said in a statement to The Guardian that they would “continue to monitor Flaco and his activities and would be prepared to resume recovery efforts if he shows some sign of difficulty or hardship.” distress.”
The NYPD even joined in the fun with a shameless post on the night of his escape on February 2 after trying in vain to argue with the “little wise man.”
“Well, that was a hoot. We tried to help this little sage, but he was already fed up with his growing audience and flew away. @NYCParks Rangers, stay tuned: he was last seen flying south on Fifth Avenue,” the city Police Department said.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn