I have top sort on the comment feed to give me an idea on what the rest of the comments will be like. It’s the one the most people have taken some interaction with, and further comments are likely going to reflect that top comment. If the top couple of comments stink, not much need to go through the rest. At that point even any good takes will be buried.

I do use a few different sorts for the All feed. Usually it’s too, so I don’t miss anything important, but hot, scaled, and new all give me a good amount of different things I wouldn’t see otherwise.

I used to try to hit up new at least once a day and try to comment on at least one post to try to bump it up and help build communities. That was always fun.

One of the few things I miss from reddit is a better controversial sort. Every Friday I’d go through controversial/week and see the best bad takes of the week.

I just tried that sort and it must be comments per last hour or something, it’s all my recent replies to everyone.

I could’ve have a celebration thread without a photo dump!

I put a dozen pics in the comments, the crown pic was just for fun.

They’re just about everywhere, they’re just champs at hide and seek!

I try to find something for everyone!

I just replied to another person that there is so much we don’t know about owls due to how difficult they’ve been to study until recently that nowadays there are so many new discoveries about them coming out from new ways we have of observing them.

Hang around and you’ll learn about the dogs that search for owls, high speed photography, genetic testing, owl searching drones, and all sorts of cool stuff.

Of course there’s not a new breakthrough every day, so we just look at pretty birds until then!

I hope you will find plenty to enjoy!

I’m glad you enjoyed it! It’s a lot of fun to do, and I love seeing you all take part.

I try to include some facts, and I did a bit in the opening rounds, but there’s a couple issues with it.

The biggest problem is despite humanity’s long knowledge of owls, we don’t know all that much about most of them. Most owls hate people. Most of their activity is in the dark. They live in hard to reach places. Some migrate huge distances. They’ve historically been very difficult animals to learn about, and much of our knowledge about them has really only started becoming more than guesses within the last few decades.

It was only in the 1970s we finally learned how owls can hunt in the dark. Genetic testing is teaching us what owls are actually related, and there have been many surprises. People are training dogs to find owls since they can see (smell, more appropriately!) things we can’t. Drones are letting us get to nest sites that would otherwise be impossible to see.

For some owls, literally all we know is they exist. If they are in really remote places with poor access, we are very lucky if we know what they eat or how they nest.

There are at least 250 species of owl, many with multiple subspecies, so that leaves many we haven’t gotten around to really learning about. The more common ones we know of have a decent amount of facts available, but when they “compete” against one we don’t know much about, I don’t want to have unbalanced profiles, so I try to include an even amount.

I tried to at least give an approximate size comparison for everyone this time, and if they had any interesting dietary things I put that in. Other things we know are either just general things that apply to most owls, or things a bit more complicated and interesting that they need a full post to go over.

I treat Owl of the Year as basically a beauty contest. You learn their names, where they’re from, and some basics likes and dislikes. It’s to get people excited for another year of learning the deeper stuff.

With it just being me, it’s hard to put out too much spontaneous things for 2 weeks straight. Most posts now I prepare a few weeks ahead of time now. With the close matches this year, many I had very little lede time on. There was also major issues in my real life that unexpectedly put my schedule out of order, which didn’t help.

Part way through I did try to enhance things a bit with bigger pictures. It is sometimes hard to find quality pics of the rarer birds or there are old photos that had lower resolution, so I ran many through an upscaled to make them at least 1080p.

This is more info than you asked for, but I got carried away with behind the scenes things! Please don’t take it as complaining!

I love running this and the positivity it brings, but it’s really a marathon for me, and I’m mentally worn out by the time it’s over. I enjoy talking about my thought process behind what I did, and I like taking everyone’s suggestions into account. I just have to keep my goals in line with my available time I can devote to it.

But annnnnyway! Thank you for enjoying it! I hope you hang around and continue to learn great owl stuff. I have lots more Snowy pics, some attacks on eagles by owls, some more of the rare Latin American owls, some owls (real and fake) in Christmas trees, all kinds of good stuff!

The only one in my neighborhood is from 5 years ago, but it’s an adorably angry Screech!

eBird has some good maps if you want to see what is in your area too.

I will keep the Gran Duc content coming!

Just got some great videos of a Great Horned teaching some eagles a lesson!

It’s fun doing it. Thank you so much for helping to make this community great yourself.

It won some very close races. No one can say SWO didn’t deserve this.

Owls are huge fans of the jump scare! 😆

That’s the truth! I did my best to present them all as equally beautiful and fascinating.

I agree, I’ve been paying much attention to GHO plumage this year and appreciating all the differences between different individuals. Truly beautiful.

After posting many recently of the Great Horned and the Eagle Owl looking so tough, it’s nice to see one looking innocent and cuddly. They will always be some of my very favorite owls!

No plumicorns for the horned fans buuuuuut the facial disc and a scowl can do a reasonably decent facsimile.

Finding the pics is one thing, and then I tried to sort them so the colors and expressions were well spread out so they looked like well rounded candidates.

Last year I had the pics separated and added up vote totals, but I think this kept it more organized.

I do love that annoyed face! 🥰

I’m glad you liked it! I had been looking forward to doing it again, and despite a lot going on in my real life, this year’s games went rather smoothly and helped keep me from getting too stressed while dealing with things. It’s always nice for us to have a bunch of fun together!

I do remember that! Great job, all knowing one! 😁

Of course! And thank you too for being here all this time. I only do this because you all make it so rewarding! I’m always appreciative of everyone’s comments and participation.

I was a bit surprised when everyone started rallying behind this little one, but it was a pleasant surprise. We had some flashy owls, and this sweet but simple one captured everyone’s hearts this time around.

I’d have been equally happy with the mighty Eagle Owl, but as frustration with many things is growing around the world, I feel it says something good about us we chose an innocent (looking!) owl to represent us.

I hope everyone has a great holiday season, and I’ll be doing some year end wrap-up stuff again soon.