If you've never been blessed to see an owl in person, they are amazing creatures. I had one land on a telephone pole on my street once, and it had a wingspan (educated guess here) of at least six feet. Little guy was HUGE.

I realized in that moment where the mothman sightings originate. I imagine most people don't realize just how big owls are and misidentify them for lack of familiarity.

If anyone wants to read a bit more, here is a nice NPR article.

"It was, like, totally shocking," Andrew Farnsworth, a migration ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said of the barn owls. "To the best of our knowledge, like the collective birding knowledge, there hasn't been a nest in, you know, in Manhattan, at least in recorded history."

With barn owl numbers experiencing major decline worldwide, it is the most unexpected time to see them show up here. Seeing the water tower with rare owls again was bittersweet, as the towers remind me of all the Flaco photos of him hanging out there.

Owls aren't rare for cities, despite that being the last place we think of seeing them. I didn't get to see it, but last year when I visited Brooklyn, I heard a Great Horned Owl clear as day as I walked around in the morning. There are a great number of hazards for them, between cars, rat poison, and whatever other human hazards that come with being around us. I hope these owls stay safe.