From Ivan Putter

Flying brown Teddy bears (Pel’s Fishing Owls) of Mapungubwe (South Africa).

Since great captures of a pretty uncommon owl!

      • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
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        22 days ago

        Like playing hide and seek with a toddler in comparison to other owls 😁

        To be fair, they only really need to hide from fish…

        Those goldfish with the upward facing eyes are probably their arch nemesis!

        • marron12@lemmy.world
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          21 days ago

          Made me think of tigers, who apparently look green to the animals they hunt, since they can’t see red/orange. I wonder how owls see colors. And who eats them…maybe just other birds of prey?

          • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
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            21 days ago

            Rats, I was just reading or watching something the other day about this but can’t recall what. It was talking about how owls have a much higher rod to cone ratio of receptors in their eyes for night vision and I think it said that gives them a darker and more muted sense of color than we have, but don’t quote me on that.

            Bigger raptors will sometimes eat smaller ones, but human hazards are their biggest risk these days.

            • marron12@lemmy.world
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              21 days ago

              Huh, interesting. So many different ways of perceiving the world.

              I was just reading about bridges so animals can move around the territories that got carved up by roads. The fish doorbell is fun too. It’s nice to see things going more in that direction.

              • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
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                21 days ago

                I always forget about the fish doorbell! 😆

                I saw on here somewhere yesterday, Ireland is adding “swift bricks” to new construction to help recover the swift population. So new buildings will come with birdhouses installed! I know we have Chimney Swifts here that nest in chimneys, which I’m sure you can quickly come up with a potential hazard that poses, so maybe this is a win-win for Ireland’s birds.

    • altkey (he\him)@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      22 days ago

      Every photo in the thread gives me chills. The combo of huge black eyes on a bright brown face is like a wooden mask with empty eyesockets does that too me. Doesn’t make it less gorgeous (maybe even more) but Teddy Bear it definetely isn’t :D

      • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
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        22 days ago

        Scare Bear, then? 😅

        Thay are a bit unusual looking, even for an owl, so I can see some added fear of the unnatural, and the black eyes do tend to be considered the most creepy of owl eye colors, so I get it. Many throughout mankind’s history have been more than a little unsettled by our owly friends, but you still seem to appreciate them in spite of all that, so I applaud your efforts!

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    !!! Wow and a Whole New Owl (for me) even! This is better than 99.999% of the rest of the news today.

    Which probably isn’t saying much. Hooray, is what I meant :D

    • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
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      22 days ago

      I thought so too, but it’s done extremely poorly. The 3 Fishing Owls are all very fluffy and fancy, which I love, but they are also very uncommon, so it’d be tough to find good pics of them, so I’m not too upset. 😜

      Here are the other 2. The Pel’s seems the most common.

      Rufous

      Vermiculated