Woody thought he found the motherlode!
TIL it's lode and not load. The motherlode is the primary vein of an ore that all the other deposits branch out from. A lode is any vein of ore.
Owl photographers are probably helped because other birds hate owls. 😅
Many get alerted to the presence of the owls by the other birds trying to drive them off. It's called "mobbing" and is actually a very rare type of activity in nature, as birds of various species will cooperate with each other to get the owl out of there.
They also feud with other raptors for food and territory.
Pretty much everyone but us hates owls. Even owls hate other owls!
I almost feel like this article for example could be like 3 paragraphs, but it was broken up and rearranged to make it look longer. To me it looks like it jumps around the way it's written, but it could just be my speech structure vs this author's.
My brain sees:
Here's a story about an owl.
This guy helped the owl and he works at this place.
Here's a fact about the owl.
Hold that though, the guy is talking to me again.
These owls aren't common here.
Back to you, Chris.
And here's some more about his workplace again. Ok, I'm out.
I'd say: This owl got hit. This is what caused it. This is how it got fixed. Here's some cool stuff about the owl since you probably never saw one and most people don't spend every day thinking about strange owls like I do.
To me, my way is telling a story, and the author's feels like they're googling owl facts while talking to the guy and then they just clean up his notepad and print that without composing it all together.
Again, this is more this phenomenon I keep seeing in multiple sources. I'm certainly not hating on the author. I assume the editors make them do it this way.
Especially if they start flicking that long ass tongue!
Creeper.
Lol. Educational places on my feed will sometimes picture a close up of feathers or feet as a "can you guess this animal" thing, and that is what I think of when they show the feet pics. Wikitalons is a good name.
I initially wondered if it was related to short attention spans, but then I thought perhaps it's just so paragraphs aren't such big blocks of text on phones. Even the non-mobile site only has 2/3 the width dedicated to the articles and the rest is thick white spaces and ads/links to other articles.
Wasn't sure if this is some modern design language that's being taught or something else.
Why are so many articles written all in single sentence paragraphs lately?
From John Crooks
Sat there minding my own business when for no apparent reason a little birdie bites me!!
From Star Mail
Fresh calls to take greater care on Victorian roads with a Greater Sooty Owl recently needing life-saving treatment at Healesville Sanctuary’s wildlife hospital.
The threatened species with soulful eyes and sharp talons suffered a head trauma, suspected of being hit by a car at Gembrook south-east of Melbourne.
A wildlife carer rushed the large nocturnal bird to the Sanctuary’s Australian Wildlife Health Centre (AWHC) where it received a full medical check including X-Rays, eye examination and blood tests upon arrival.
Healesville Sanctuary veterinary nurse Chris Stitt said they needed to rule out rodenticide poisoning which was the main reason for the blood test.
“We found the owl was straining one of its eyes due to corneal damage. But thankfully, we didn’t find any fractures,” Mr Stitt said.
“It is not a species we see often, so it was quite an exciting moment to be up close to such an amazing bird that’s considered endangered in Victoria. In my seven years working at the wildlife hospital, I haven’t come across one before.”
The greater sooty owl was provided a quiet, dark place to recover in the new Raptor Rehabilitation Centre while it received fluids, anti-inflammatory medication and pain relief.
Seven days later, wildlife carers released this beautiful species back to the wild where it was found at dusk.
Greater sooty owls are a medium to large owl species that stand about 40-50 centimetres tall.
They are listed as endangered under the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 and listed as least concern with a decreasing population on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Threats to their survival include habitat loss and fragmentation, rodenticide poisoning and road trauma.
Chris admits seeing this wildlife patient serves as a good reminder to take extra care when driving at dawn and dusk because that’s when so many of our native species come out and explore.
I find it all the more wholesome because most owls really hate even other owls. They really come together and are so selfless for the kids. Most tend to pair for life, but even during the remainder of the year, they don't hang out much and just kind of tolerate sharing territory. But add babies, and all of a sudden that mom puts her life on the line every day for them and the dad is just hunting and guarding territory 24/7. Even after the little ones leave the nest, they still help them out until just before winter, making sure they're prepared and healthy until they're able to seek out their own territory.
It gives them a real duality, which just adds to the complexness of these amazing animals and their lives.
You know...it just might be able to even better than Tom Cruise.... 🤔
Negative Gs can cause redouts from blood pooling in the head. Our blood vessels tend to constrict and are fitted pretty snuggly to our bone structure. Owls on the other hand have their head blood vessels running through air pockets in their vertebrae. These channels leave about 10x the required space for the blood vessels, and their blood vessels do have the ability to expand.
This is the amazing anatomy that allows owls to turn their heads that famous 270 degrees. Since they can't swivel their actual eyes, the whole head needs to turn every which way. If their air and blood flow were subject to the opposing forces like it is for humans, they'd choke themselves out trying to look around. Longer explaination here.
And just searching quickly, most sources put regular flight for most birds reaches 2-4 Gs, with some maneuvers reaching 10-14, and some fancy birds like peregrine falcons hitting 25G. Owls typically don't fly too fast because it would be counterproductive to flying silently, plus their flight feathers aren't as dense, so I think the structure would give out before they could generate enough thrust.
From Kevin Lohman
The young Great Horned Owls are learning to fly, but they need lots of practice. One owl made it to a branch on a eucalyptus tree, but landed upside down. It hung there for a moment before releasing the branch and heading to a nearby cypress tree.
Santa Cruz, California
The other week, baby GHO at work took off and hung like this from the cyclone fence roof when it didn't like me going into its favorite corner to clean up. It looks like they're in a tough predicament, but it just seems to be a thing they do. They're strong enough to hold on, and they can flap well enough to land when they let go.
"You never saw me!"
I just realized I never followed the link in the post. It's a really good photo there!
From Izzy Edwards
Red/Rufous morph of the Western Screech Owl
Like their close relative, the Eastern Screech-Owl, Western Screech-Owls display a range of color morphs that tend to vary by region.
Pale gray individuals are more common east of the Cascades and Sierra Nevadas, while darker brown morphs are typically found to the west of these mountain ranges.
Among these variations, the red morph is exceptionally rare and largely absent from standard field guides. One of the few documented sightings appears on the blog Sitkanature.org, which features a red morph individual observed in Sitka, Alaska.
Evidence suggests that this unusual coloration may occur in coastal areas of Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. However, due to its scarcity, the red morph is not well recognized among ornithologists, and very little information is available.
From Lamacus Lewis
OMG another so called "nature photographer" can't you people just leave me alone."
Cape Coral, FL
Canon EOS R7
Sigma 150-600mm C
From Wildlife Aid
Little owls are very much the Jekyll and Hydes of the owl world, if they don't look adorably cute and innocent, they're glowering, as if judging you for every decision you've ever made in life!
Our first of the season, now, obviously, nicknamed "Jekyll", was found by a spaniel on a footpath. With scan of the area revealing no obvious nest site, Jekyll will have to remain in care until he's old enough a. strong enough to fend for himself.
From Sriram Udhaya
Send some my way, GG! I'm sick of these sweltering days! 🥵☀️
From A Place Called Hope
You ever wonder what happens to donated fake Christmas trees? Orion, resident Northern Saw Whet Owl, demonstrates
From Weekly Times
A biological rodent control initiative founded by a Sunshine Coast local was crowned this year’s winner of The Hatch: Taronga Accelerator Program, taking home a massive cash prize.
Biological rodent control initiative Owls Eat Rats was crowned this year’s winner of The Hatch: Taronga Accelerator Program, taking home a massive $50,000 cash prize.
Founded by Sunshine Coast local Alastair Duncan, Owls Eat Rats is a landscape-level initiative that supports barn owl populations as a natural, long-term solution for rodent control in agriculture.
Through the installation of nesting boxes, hunting roosts and ecological monitoring, Owls Eat Rats promotes “the return and ongoing presence of these native predators in farming landscapes as an alternative solution to rodenticide”.
Mr Duncan said many farmers were forced to use environmentally damaging poisons for rodent-control because they can’t access other options.
“The most widely used are anticoagulant rodenticides that are really harmful to the environment and not great for our food,” Mr Duncan said.
Australia’s rats have also developed a “genetic resistance” to many chemicals used by farmers, Mr Duncan said.
“They’ve got this genetic immunity to these really toxic poisons, so the only response is to double down on more poisons,” he said.
“So the efficacy is dropping but the concentration of these chemicals in our wildlife is going up.”
As an alternative, Mr Duncan’s initiative builds “beautiful, safe habitats” that draw owls to farmland.
“They [control rodent populations] the natural way and it’s a year-round protection,” he said.
On Wednesday, June 25, Mr Duncan was one of nine founders of six start-ups who went head-to-head in a competitive pitch event held at Taronga Zoo in Sydney.
After what Mr Duncan called “a privilege and fantastic opportunity to engage with like minded change-makers,” in the program, Owls Eat Rats was awarded the grant.
“Winning is mind-blowing and the money is huge, but the actual program itself was amazing,” Mr Duncan said.
“We came in with this beautiful idea and some great research, but we walked away with all these amazing contacts and a 12-month plan for how to bring this idea forward.
“Even if we didn’t win the prize, we would be so well placed for what comes next.”
Taronga Conservation Society Australia chief executive officer, Cameron Kerr AO said he was “incredibly impressed” by the calibre of this year’s Hatch cohort, especially Owls Eat Rats.
“Each of the start-up founders offered thoughtful and practical solutions to some of the most urgent environmental challenges,” he said.
“We’re excited to see where [Owls Eat Rats] goes next, and we’re immensely grateful to our donors for backing early-stage ideas like this.
“With their continued support, we can help turn groundbreaking thinking into lasting environmental impact."
From Martin Buckley
I'd make a terrible hitman.
Spotted every single time by a Little, Short Eared & Barn Owl!
Luckily the only thing i would ever shoot a bird with is a camera and lens.
From Robby Villabona
In my almost nightly walks to search for civets I occasionally run into other night creatures. It was my first time to see a Philippine scops owl in the wild and it didn't seem to care being photographed at close range. It stayed on its perch for close to an hour and was still there when I left to go home.
I'd been hearing their calls around our village since 2021 but never had the luck to find one until last night.
Tagaytay City, 22 May 2025
OM-1 + M.Zuiko 40-150 f/2.8 Pro + MC-14 1.4x teleconverter + Nitecore MH-40 Pro ISO-200 1/200s f/4 210mm
It does seem to complicate things with how many device sizes we can have.
I'd probably deal with it better if it was ordered more logically and was just broken down for legibility.
I was thrilled to get some Sooty content. They are so cool looking! I'd love to meet one sometime. 🥰