For owls that are superb.
Photos by Shankar S
In honor of our little buddy WFS winning the big tournament, I thought this guy might make a nice transition back to my normal postings.
Giant Scops is the largest of the Scops (genus Otus) owls. He comes in at a monstrous 12 inches / 30 cm. White Faced Scops is 9.5 inches / 24 cm.
The Giant Scops is only found on 3 islands in the Philippines, one of which essentially has no trees left, and the other 2 are leased to logging companies. π
Oh so cute! I nearly missed this juvenile Giant Scops owl so taken in as I was with the adult you saw in the previous picture.
Looks like me every morning before I've had my coffee
I do suppose if it's daylight, that's the up too damn early equivalent for most owls!
I love how even the baby has a full old man moustache and looks like he's already lived a long life.
A parting shot of the Giant Scops Owl, looking at us ruefully as if to say, 'we are just starting, do you need to go now?'.
A lot of owl photos have the same look as I do when woken up in the mornings, though now I think about it the times humans photograph them are likely not when they're at their most awake either!
Probably why those Snowies and Burrowing Owls always look so cheery! They're the daytime owls. I wonder if they look grumpy at night...
Love the coloring on this one.
I do too! I like the black water droplet like spots going down the front and the heavier looking eyebrow ridges.
Thought it would be fun to compare this one to the White Faced Scops we spent all week admiring to show the diversity of the Otus genus and highlight why it got split up a few times over the years. With WFS (Ptilopsis) in Africa, Giant Scops in far East Asia (Otus, the original genus), and the Screech Owls (Megascops) you can tell just by looking at them they are pretty significantly different.
There are still 56 species of owl today that are still in the Otus genus, so between them and the handful that have gotten their own new genus, that's a lot of Scops!
π
Yay! I was worried we dropped back down to no comments already!
They don't look like it in these pics but they do have the big round owl eyes too.
I try to engage on work/study breaks lol.
What a gorgeous, big eyed beauty. And to think I almost ignored this sub cause I thought it was going to be sports π
I had kinda hoped when this group started here it would have a different name, but the Reddit sub does have almost half a million subscribers, so most people are probably coming from there, so this is familiar with them.
There is also a FoxNews on Lemmy somewhere that is nothing but fox pictures. Also one of the Conservative ones got taken over by a conservationist. Those were both entertaining to find.
I like when people check in, even if it's just an emoji or "nice owl" or whatever. It let's me know you're there, plus I like both seeing the same names coming back and new ones showing up for the first time. It gives me an idea too if I should keep posting new info and pics or rehash some old stuff to get new people caught up.
You are a very engaged mod! Respect. Very few communities have that luxury.
Not a mod, just someone being the change they wanted to see in the group. π
Oh jeez, I just assumed cause you are very dedicated lol
Nah, I leave that being responsible stuff to other people, I'm just here to have fun!
βWhy are you smiling? Are you looking at cat photos again?β
βNoβ¦?β
βWell?β
βOwl photosβ¦.β
You:
yeah, pretty much. the GF did start making "squee" noises as she was scrolling though. Usually that's good thing.
How could anyone not think these guys are all the cutest?
My girlfriend doesn't like the Bay Owl, but pretty much all the others meet the "so cute!" standards.
Oh, the squeee-noises are reserved for only the cutest of things. Itβs a very high standard.