Photo by Fleur Walton
Sorry for the relatively low effort posts today, I’m traveling back home today.
Masked Owls are one of the larger Australian Tyto species. Formerly also known as Mouse Owls, from catching mice at homesteads. Habitat loss is affecting these guys, as it is for many owls, and this species is starting to be given conservation status in different areas.
From Wikipedia:
Masked owls follow the typical pattern of birds from the tropics being much smaller than birds from temperate regions. In this instance, Tasmanian masked owls are the largest and the largest of the entire barn-owl family. Among the species in the family, only the greater sooty owl is on average heavier than the Australian masked owl but the Tasmanian species is rather larger and heavier even than the greater sooty owl.
No apologies necessary. You are single-handedly carrying this marvelous community, and we all appreciate you for it. It’s definitely a highlight of my Lemmy feed.
Aww, I appreciate that!
I’ve been feeling lately it’s the highlight of my own Lemmy experience too. I came over in the mass Reddit migration in the summer and then it felt happy and new, but lately I’ve felt a bit like most of the top posts are all grumpy political and tech/FOSS things that I’d been happier to be away from with Reddit, so I feel now it’s even more important to have a positive space like SuperbOwl.
Maybe social media in general just tilts to that direction naturally as debates or as arguments suck people in. Back when I first started to post, I would ask people why nobody was engaging, and the answer was pretty much what is there to discuss with animal photos?
While there isn’t necessarily much to debate, I was hoping just to hear positive reactions, even if it’s just ooo, pretty or this pic made me smile today which I suppose has its limits to how many times you guys would feel like posting that. There have been a few times though where posts have started fun conversations.
The international owl sounds had a lot of good things about other countries, and whenever it screw up something about Australia or New Zealand those guys kindly let me know that I don’t know what I’m talking about and try to fill me in, so there is some good interaction occasionally.
I still hope for growth of this group. The number of subscribers is still going up steadily and we’re on the trending list fairly often and don’t end up too far down on All usually. Eventually we’ll get s few of you guys that will post now and then too, and that should help. Other people that have posted have gotten his reactions before.
Until then, I just want to keep this going, because I like having an oasis for people to come to that can you y their spirits without being the regular puppy and kitty stuff you give everywhere else. I like being able to get people to appreciate a new animal.