Months later, while attending a film party, I mentioned my birding, and an acquaintance asked me in abject shock about the quantity of birds in Central Park. It was soon revealed that he had been a resident of the nearby Central Park Zoo, and that he’d been somehow freed, taking his chance of escape and somewhat clumsily flying with it. The zoo eventually gave up their attempts at capture (all of them staggeringly inept, most of them horrifying), and Flaco spent the next year zipping around Central Park and beyond. ‘Wild Inside‘ David LeiHe became a major star, a bona fide celebrity, and the spark bird for innumerable fans. When Barry died in August 2021, the primary cause of death was a collision with a truck inside Central Park.