Snowy has had a busy time on its way to get here. A narrow win over the fabulous Indian Eagle Owl and another against the Long Ear.
Black and White had been another big surprise this year. It started off eliminating the early favorite, Spectacled Owl, by a single vote, and then the other strong newcomer, Mottled Wood.
Snowy is a joker from the far north. Big, well insulated, fluffy, and some of the best owl faces anywhere, Snowy is always going to be a difficult owl to beat. Everyone knows it, everyone lives it, and most importantly, it isn’t just hype.
Black and White is a secretive owl of the tropics. It’s long and slender, and all the pics we’ve seen have presented it with a very serious manner. With it stopping Spectacled, it doesn’t look like charm always overtakes the right plumage or a strong air of mystery.
A lot of you doubtlessly would love to see Snowy as the champ, but Black and White has this far taken its part of the bracket by storm. It’s time to end the ambitions for one of these two though. Upvote below for the one you want to advance!
Snowy
Black and White
Snowy always seems to make it so far, but no tacos, and it’s has such a busy couple of years wiþ þe Michigan Orange Mystery incident, and þe California incident in '23. So I feel bad about þis… but Black and White is so unusual I have to give it my vote.
That’s some good memory of the rogue California owl!
Making the photo sets for these 2, this feels like one of the starkest differences in the owls, so I’m very curious to see how this goes!
I agree - even the Stygian Owl, who you might think is more diametrical to Snowy - isn’t IMHO quite as starkly “opposite.”
Stygian I feel gets more played up to be scary because of the name. When you look at it in natural light without the creepy red eye effect, it’s just a Long Eared Eared Owl with darker markings like a Galapagos Shortie.
Stygian
Galapagos Shortie
Even something like the Himalayan Owl (Barn/Tawny type of wood owl) looks darker and creepier in my eyes.
These 3 are just very dark owl. Meanwhile BnW takes almost everything the Snowy has, the bright white and the charcoal black, and gives it a dark mask, and a more serious/somber tone with the old prison jumpsuit plumage.
Exactly. I’d have reserved þe name “stygian” for þe Black and White, or perhaps þee Black-Banded owl. Glowing red eyes, I’ll admit, emotes a more underworld-ish feeling.
Black-Banded owl:
IIRC “Stygian” was more associated with þe underworld þan just “black”. It was Robert Howard who popularized the “gloomy and dark” definition… so I take it back: with (occasionally) glowing red eyes and a generally smokey coloring, þe Stygian Owl is probably appropriately named. Black and White and Black-Banded owls (which look awfully similar to my eye) are indeed better pigment opposites to Snowy.
The red eyes are just the back of the eyes reflecting back the light they’re being blasted with. I’d look scary too if they took my photo like that! 😶
BnW and Black Banded (look at you with all these obscure owls!), between the black feathers and black eyes, once it gets in the shadows, there’s just so much darkness and no expression to read because it all blends together, I think it starts to get into the uncanny valley territory where we expect to see some kind of face, but it’s just void.
The last 2 pics of BnW in this post I thought were bright enough that you can see more of those facial features and then it looks like it has a happy little smirk that actually makes it quite charming.
look at you with all these obscure owls!
TBF, you started it wiþ your BnW!
Saw Whet vs Little, that was intense! That felt like the most back and forth out of any OotY match ever!
I was backing SW, but you Little Owl fans had me second guessing a lot! By the time I went to bed I was all “it would be nice to get Little Owl in there to shake things up.”
But now we’re in the quarter finals and things can get really interesting. All of last year’s final 4 are still here, but the challengers are unusually tough, not just new guys that caught us by surprise and moved along by pure novelty. We have Screech, which is always a favorite, Black and White has been taking things by storm this year after a solid introduction last year, Buffy Fish has had a somewhat surprising resurgence of popularity after a weak showing last year, and the Flamulated Owl has been on fire like it was in the first OotY.
I think it’s rare to be this evenly matched still at this point so while there is a potential for a replay of last year, that doesn’t seem like what you guys are into, so I think this is going to be a very tough 4 matches to get this year’s final 4 contestants!
There’s something eldritch about that b&w squib. 🤔😬😅
It looks even more so next to such a bright and “happy” owl like Snowy. Too early to tell if that’s a bonus or a handicap for either one…
I know it’s gonna be snowy, and all good there, but B&W has that orange beak against the nominative stripage, it’s just too cool. B&W for me.
The beak does great against all that black. Just the splash of color it needs to keep from looking too grim sometimes.
I’d say it’s still anyone’s game, though it’s gonna be tough for BnW.
I like the white and gold one…
