From Sabrina J Rangel

When a short-eared owl gives you that look-Go ahead, make me famous!

Nikon gears

Bhigwan Grasslands, Maharashtra India

  • Elevator7009@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I wonder where you get all these high quality owl pictures. Yes, you post the source, but that is not what I mean. Do you seek them out specifically to post? Are you already such a huge owl fan that they just naturally show up on your regular internet browsing, and you decide to share some with us?

    I’m a mix of both. Sometimes I specifically browse the internet for cute animal content to post on Lemmy, sometimes I just am browsing for cute animal stuff on my own and think “huh wait, Lemmy could use this.”

    • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
      3·
      2 days ago

      I’ve always liked just about all animals, but have had a few favs over the years. When I met my current girlfriend she liked owl, so one day I was like where can I go to see owls specifically and found The Raptor Trust in NJ. After that, I started seeking them out at regular zoos and other rescue/rehab places with public access.

      For specific content through here, my Facebook feed does the heavy lifting because love it or hate it, it’s free, it’s huge, and it’s easy to use so anyone making content is going to share it there if they share it anywhere. Now that I follow probably over 100 rescues and photographers my algorithm is pretty well tuned to bring me almost exclusively owls, about half are non-AI content. What’s left though, is pretty premium stuff now and I could share just about every post. I’m at the point I pass over a bunch of things and still have enough or sometimes too much.

      I currently have 36 saved posts, ready to deploy as needed. I try to make 3 or 4 a day so I stay topped off. Then I can just choose 4 I’m in the mood for in the morning before I head out to work. When I’m bored at work I’ll just Google “owl” and click the news tab and see what’s good there. That’s another way I can add new places to my feed.

      I’ve also been using Google translate to try to get terms for rescues and species in other languages to try and find exotic local content. That’s my big goal this year to get a lot more of that. I also am interviewing this week to volunteer a day a week at the largest rescue in my state to try to get some hands on knowledge. It’s not owl specific, but they have a number of them there, including some educational animals and maybe I will see what all it takes to get in on some of that action. They have a pretty strict social media policy, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to get pics, but I should be able to get some good practical education.

      Mostly I just like the researching and trying to find new things to teach you guys here. It’s fun, and I get happy when you all get really interested in things.