From Gerry Uchytil
When you have a few moments to spend with such a beautiful creature (boreal owl) their personality shines through. ❤️
From Gerry Uchytil
When you have a few moments to spend with such a beautiful creature (boreal owl) their personality shines through. ❤️
Boreals are having a moment this year, aren’t they?
New crush, anon?
Lol, ironically you guys don’t like the same owls that I like to some extent, so I end up skipping posting some things I like and purposefully looking for things you all like.
But you have stumbled upon something that I’ve noticed from my feed this year. The first year of doing this my sources were almost all rescues, so it was a pretty even variety of owls all year because they are all local to those rescues.
After getting all the rescues followed in my feed, I started getting wildlife photographers recommended to me. While many are still US based, so it’s the same species overall, now there are “seasons” where the photographers can either capture them raising young at specific times, or catching migratory species like the Saw Whet and Boreal and Snowy, so the photographers will also “migrate” for those photo ops.
I try not to post more than 1 post of each owl a day so nobody gets bored, but to those like yourself paying close attention, you will notice what owls are seasonally active.
By trying to get more non-US content, that is another thing I think that can be softened, as there will be more active seasons spread over more area. I’m sure there’s a Fish Owl season or a White Faced Scops season, I just need to find the people that get those opportunities. Places like Owl Rescue Centre in South Africa have been a blessing because we have no overlap in species, yet they still speak English.
As I get Middle Eastern and Asian owls though, I need to learn how to translate into languages I have no understanding of to find keywords to get me what I need. Languages will have multiple words for owls or animal sanctuaries, and it is very hard to guess what a committee translator will give me for matches for those terms. So you will see a trickle of new content this year as I crack bits of the code.
I think I’ve just given you way more info than you were looking for. I prefer the Saw Whet to the Boreal so far, but if anyone finds they love the more rare Boreal, this time is for them, unless Boreal posts don’t do well, and I’ll scale them back.
Long Ears are my top owl you guys don’t care about as much as I do, and wood owls will do well if I post one, but sticking with them seems to take away from the group interest.
The taste preferences and habits of you all keep me about as interested as the owls do! 😆
I like Scopes because they’ve got all the bling, including long ears. But, yes, different owls.
I didn’t care one way it another about owls until this community, so I’m just a sucker for a pretty face; I’m sure the reasons you like LOs is more nuanced.
It is hard to not love an owl the size of your palm, like the Saw Whet, though. Our most common local owls (lower MN) tend to be GHO, Screech, and Barn - according to my wife’s bird-identification-app - so I suppose I should be rooting for them. But I don’t know; I got into team Scopes, and I think I’m there to stay.
I feel the same about the Long Ear. I don’t think it would be my number 1 over all, if I had to pick one it would likely be GHO just because it is what I see when I close my eyes and think “owl.”
Long Eared is neither too big to be that scary nor too small as to be overly fragile. A lot of the great looks of the GHO, but with orange facial disc and sometimes orange eyes (orange is one of my fav colors), good moustache and plumicorns, and it’s actually social for an owl, so you can see lots of them together! The rugged individualism and shear power of the GHO again gives it a slight edge overall, but the LEO I think has a good bit of all owl positive qualities, yet is kind and approachable for a death machine. WFS has most of those things, but not the group activity, so still top 10, probably top 5 easy.
It’s not like I get shorted on seeing them of course, I just don’t make as many posts about them, so I don’t really lose out, it just perplexes me a bit.
It’s great everyone has different tastes. There’s always someone to love each kind of owl. Even monochromatic bullet-blob owls like the Snowy (J/k, I’m just dredging up an old debate).
I 100% agree on the orange eyes. That’s what cinched it for me when you so cruelly pitted Scopes against Saw Whet. WFS has mesmerizing eyes.
Lol no no no, youguys all pitted them against each other! I had no say in the votes or even much in the roster this year. 😇