Caves are another great example! Being near the Appalachians, I’ve been to a bunch and there’s always a part of the tour that shows where people used to just bust off stuff for souvenirs, touch stuff and mess up the continued growth of the cave, burn marks from fires, etc. People just don’t seem to consider then accumulated impact of everyone using through doing the same exact thing.

You’re in a cave for crying out loud! You can’t get much more exemplary of how small actions of time cause significant change even to solid rock!

Just added a dusting of periods at the end again. Still no clue what’s causing the issue.

So cute!

Owlsome!

Most of the birding groups I follow will take down posts sharing locations of rare bird sightings for this exact reason. Some people are just jerks doing it for the clicks, but everyone has a desire to catch that one rare animal they never thought they’d have a chance to photograph, and then there are hoards more with the same thoughts, and people get caught up in their own moment. One person doing something dumb or intrusive usually isn’t so bad, but when you start getting dozens/hundreds of people with the same poor decisions going to one specific place, well, you end up with the rare frogs now becoming ultra-rare frogs.

Yes, Piefed seems to have grabbed the best bits of Lemmy and added on some niceties. The polling feature would be amazing for OotY. I’d like it to be more blind for people that haven’t voted yet.

I see some people successfully embed video links, which I haven’t figured out either, plus with the privacy people being touchy about what gets opened automatically, I don’t know if doing so would annoy more people than it benefited.

Extra cuteness never hurt anyone’s popularity. I do get a little excited every year when the games bump our community a good bit up the front page community rankings.

That’s why I love them!

They always look so sleepy/lazy/high/whatever they look like they’d be fun to hang out with.

I was so surprised when I started reading they had a reputation for being very territorial. It must be like getting chased off by a plushie yet murderous version of Frankenstein’s monster.

🤣

For 1 owl to live the impossible dream, we must make the impossible choice. 🦉👑

With 2 great finishes in a row, Eagle Owl is going to be due for a big win soon! Next time, big guy! Eagle Owl 2026!

Haha, exactly! 😁

All the new availability of genetic testing has both let us know more than ever, but also expands our awareness of all we don’t know and disproves things we thought we knew without always giving new answers.

And then all the worst people get mad about having to redo all their writing and start calling things other names.

The fish owl people have finally got one into the finals! Blakistons and Tawny made valiant efforts, but Buffy has made it past the juggernaut that is the White Faced Owl.

The race started off closely, but Buffy fans eventually rallied and built up momentum and held onto it through the final hours.

Buffy’s still got one more hurdle though, the winner of today’s matchup between 2 other beloved owls. Neither Snowy nor Screech is going to lay back and let the fish owl win.

Snowy

…

Screech

…

Same! They’ve been my favorite owl this year.

This is another tough things I’ve been learning about myself during OotY this year. I’ve been a little looser with my commentary during the games, but besides appearing biased, I don’t want to sound like I’m lecturing people and seem annoying.

It’s not as much a “you should have voted for this” but more of asking myself out loud “what can I do to get them more excited about x?” It’s not like Barn Owl awareness is a problem. I’ve highlighted the reeeeeally white ones, a bunch of more unusual colored ones, extra spotty ones, how to tell males from females (which isn’t very common for owls to be able to do).

As pretty much a 1 person show most of the time, I don’t really have opportunities for behind the scenes chats about this stuff, but it’s on my mind whine doing OotY and seeing how you all as a collective react to things in a comparative way.

Barnies have a bit of a unique look, but it’s the result of being highly specialized for hearing, and that’s why so many studies have been done with them. A ton of our understanding about owls has come from studying Barn Owls, so how do I get you guys pumped over that instead of being “cool, but can you show me another Scops now?”

I forgot how cute that call was ☺️

I still haven’t figured out imbedding video here, as I have thought about doing a blind “pick your favorite call” thing, but I’m not keen on redirecting people off the Fediverse.

Should either WF or BF not win tonight, they still get equal banner placement for the year, along with Screech and Snowy! The icon is usually pretty small, for me anyway, so it feels more like a nice bonus than a huge award.

Your honor, I present exhibit B, this superb Barred Owl!