From a New York Times Insider column by Ed Shanahan headlined “How I Became the Metro Desk’s Owl Reporter”:

On a chilly Thursday morning this month, I hopped on a Citi Bike in Upper Manhattan and headed to the south end of Central Park. I was in search of a runaway owl.

I’m a reporter (and, sometimes, an editor) on the Metro desk, covering breaking news and general assignments, often in the criminal justice vein. I devote a lot of my energy to grim topics such as arson, dismemberment and, far too often, shootings. It’s not all crime, though: There are free speech issues, academic cheating scandals and the weather. And animals.