Baby owl, dubbed "Flaco Jr.," rescued and reunited with family after falling from Long Island nest
BAYPORT, N.Y. -- Just weeks after the loss of the beloved Central Park owl Flaco, there is a new little creature on Long Island to fall in love with.
There was an extraordinary effort in Bayport on Thursday to save the baby owl, who, unlike Flaco, cannot fly or hunt yet on its own.
"I see a little white thing on the side, right under that tree, and it's funny because I thought it was a little leftover snow," resident Linda Ferrara said.
It wasn't snow -- but the tiny feathers of a great-horned owl, all of a week old, which had fallen from a 70-foot high nest.
Ferrara brought the little guy or gal -- it's too soon to know -- to the Sweetbriar Nature Center.
"They can't fly. The parents can't pick them up and put them back into the nest. So the only thing that could be done was for us to re-nest this baby owl back with his family," director Janine Bendicksen said.
"I go, 'Are you kidding me? You're gonna put him back?' They're like, 'He's got to go with the mom,'" Ferrara said.
For a second chance.
The PSEG tree company Asplundh volunteered to help.
The Sweetbriar team built a new nest, big enough so there would be no more falls.
Before the treetop reunion, there was a hoot from the winged creatures for the utility workers on a mission of mercy.
"After everything that happened with that poor bird in the city, I felt so bad about that. Now to see us putting a little bird up there, to me, it's the Long Island Flaco," said Greg Hallstein, Asplundh's safety superintendent.
They lifted "Flaco Jr." -- as they called the baby owl -- high up to its new home. It's mama was seen flying around.
"We probably do 10 re-nests a season and the mother and father always come back, yeah, always. They don't count. They're just like, 'Oh, you're back!'" Bendicksen said.
And now Mother Nature will take over. If junior falls out again, the Sweetbriar Nature Center will raise it with a surrogate mom.
"We're hoping for three little baby owls to grow up big and strong," Bendicksen said.
And with that, the mama came home to find her baby back, with a little help from her friends below.