Barn Owl (45) vs Bare Legged Owl (19) Lots of love came in for those fancy legs, but top seed Barn Owl easily walked away with a win here.
Screech Owl (19) vs Crested Owl (17) This one had me nervous due to low turnout for a well loved owl like the Screech, but he pulled it off. The humongous eyebrows of the Crested captured a lot of hearts though.
Long Eared Owl (23) vs Buffy Fish Owl (39) The under performance of my posts of Long Eared Owls continued. Perhaps due to a recent post, relatively obscure Buffy got a solid win. He may be a force to be reckoned with going forward.
Hawk Owl (16) vs Northern Pygmy Owl (43) Everyone left respecting the stern, serious style of the Hawk Owl, but Pygmy melted the most hearts with its tiny cute charms. With a possible matchup against the Little Owl in the future, which little brown puff will prevail?
Barred Owl (27) vs Morepork (28) This was a back and forth battle to the very end, with the pride of New Zealand sneaking a win out from current bad boy of the owl world, the Barred Owl. There's gotta be some heartbroken Barred Owl fans this week!
Tawny Owl (23) vs Blakiston's Fish Owl (36) BFO finally got his due in this match. Cuddly Tawny was my pick to win big going into this one. Once everyone got to appreciate the massiveness of the BFO, it picked up a pretty easy win over Europe's sweetheart.
Barking Owl (28) vs Little Owl (30) I thought the overnight votes were going to push Barking Owl over the top, but it never happened. Very close match all day though. This one was fun to watch, and Australia still has more owls left in the tourney.
Eurasian Eagle Owl (26) vs Sooty Owl (30) Speaking of Owl-stralia, the Sooty came out of nowhere, catching the much favorited Eagle Owl off guard. You guys got enraptured by the dark feathers with sparkles of the Sooty, and the Tytonidae owls are off to a great start over the Strigs.
With many more matches to go yet, what have been the highlights or heartbreaks for you so far?
Have you learned about any owls you didn't know about before?
Did you surprise yourself picking another owl over one you were sure you'd vote for untilb you saw the competition?
What are your overall feelings about the contest?
Do you have a favorite yet to win the crown?
Let me know below!
We've also just picked up our 2000th subscriber, so thank you good stranger! I'm glad we keep growing this community and keep having fun together every day learning about our feathered friends from around the world! Thank you all!
I'd never heard of Squirrel Nutkin before, but after reading the plot summary it does sound quite morbid for a kid's story! I'll have to see if I can read it tonight. ๐
It says he is indeed a Tawny Owl. I'd usually post a pic for everybody but familiar, but I won't subject you to that since you taught me something new.
My favorite Tyto is the upcoming Oriental Bay Owl. I've been talking about him a lot lately, but I used to not like Tytos because they were too alien looking, but the OBO made the rest look normal by comparison, so now I love them all! OBO is just such an oddball. If you don't know him yet, I'd just wait until his matchup and let yourself be surprised.
Sooty Owl does indeed rock, as do all the Aussie and NZ owls!
Update: Old Brown did nothing wrong! That owl was so patient, and that little Nutkin wouldn't leave him the heck alone for 6 days straight!
The owl just napped there, leaving the squirrels to take whatever they wanted from Owl Island. He didn't harass the squirrels. He didn't demand payment from a bunch of squirrels that apparently had no problem with animal sacrifice! But that Nutkin kept making noise and poking him in his sleep and doing annoying kid stuff to him as he was trying to sleep after working the overnight shift, and none of the adult squirrels who managed to figure out ship building for them to get to Owl Island had the decency to tell the kid to knock it off or to leave him back home when they were guests who invited themselves.
It may be because I'm in my 40s and have no kids hearing this story for the first time, but Nutkin and the other squirrels got off easy!
Beatrix Potter YouTube channel link
This is all tongue in cheek of course. It was a fun little story and is forgetten how cute her animal drawings are. Thank you for sharing this with me!
LOL, yeah, looking back on it as an adult, I can see how annoying Nutkin was. But when I was a kid Old Brown was pretty scary.
I used to think Barn Owls were creepy looking, but now I love them. Their coloring/pattern is just so pretty. I will wait and be surprised by OBO. Iโm loving seeing all the lesser known (to me) owls.
It definitely seems the moral is don't annoy adults too damn much ๐