It's an amazing sound! I like when they really lean into it and use their whole body to really blast that hoot out there 😀

I'm thrilled you got to see some! As fun as the pics and stories here are, nothing beats the real thing!

there is not much in my life that i loved and hated with this much passion at the same time. i love what you doing and hate you for it. please keep doing what you do, you beautiful human

I think there are 42 books, so it is a lot. I put it off forever, but started this year with Guards, Guards (#8) and loved that, then did Mort (#4), Equal Rites (#3), and then figured I better start at the beginning since I seemed to be invested.

Someone had told me The Hogfather live action movie was on YouTube, and I watched that last year before reading the books, and was a bit lost on what was going on, but still enjoyed it.

I'm on Pyramids (#7) now, and while they all seem rather self contained at this point where you could start anywhere, Guards, Guards is a good place to start if you prefer a crime story centered around dragons, or Mort to get a solid into to Death, who generally at least has a few pop-ins in each story.

Lore feels well established, but not deep, so it's not intimidating to learn how this universe works, and if something seems unusual like an orangutan librarian, don't expect much deeper of an intro than that, he's cool with it, so people just leave him to his books, so why should the reader question it deeper than that? It's just fun to read for the sarcasm, wit, and funny events, nothing to be taken seriously.

I'm a witty one 🤡

The rest of the bracket looks pretty good, I think! Great Horned vs now White Face would be a tough one but not untenable.

Ural over Eagle Owl would be an interesting course of events too. It's the kind of surprise the previous matches show is possible.

I like your picks!

Dragonfly has been happy to do it the last 2 years. We had pretty standard stuff in there originally and someone suggested we change the images as the prize and it was a popular choice. Winner gets the icon, 2nd gets the sidebar banner, and the final 4 get on the community banner.

I encourage you to support your local groups, so that keeps me (or someone pretending to be me) aking you for money, plus they are your wild animals and I think we should all support our local rehabbers. It is tough physical, mental, and often just plain icky work, and nobody gets any public money so all these programs are funded totally by people like us.

We didn't get many owls this year, more hawks, but even for the handful of owls we do get, it costs a couple $ a day to feed them. The larger rodents/chicks they need can be up to $2 each, plus tons of cleaning supplies and medical tools, housing, and the heating cooling bills, it all adds up too quickly. If you are lucky enough to have a local rehab (many places arent served by anyone within a few hours drive in some parts of America) they should be who you go to because they're making sure your community is being served. Most rehabs don't make it more than a year or 2 because it is so time consuming and expensive.

If you do want to donate to the clinic I work at, or just to see where I pitch in: Aark Wildlife