The bracket is made!
I think this year's lineup is an improvement over last year. Based on what I've seen, all the opening matches look very competitive. My goal was to fix some of the lop-sided wins we had, and I'm feeling good about how this schedule looks.
There's going to be some tough choices for you guys. Much like last year, I'm glad I don't need to decide, but I'm still going to have to accept some painful loses at some point. I try to keep impartial during the tournament, but I definitely have some personal favorites. Sooty vs GHO is one where I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye to either one.
You guys didn't nominate my beloved Spotted Wood Owl. Buff Fronted got in, which I was happy for, but its first opponent is last year's winner.
I'm excited to see the Battle of the Southern Hemisphere between Australia's Barking Owl and NZ's Morepork.
We've got Eurasia's biggest owls going head-to-head.
Snowy, Burrowing, and Buffy are all up against some flashy newcomers where we could have a surprise victory like the unexpected triumphs the Flammulated Owl had last year,
I think I will start the games Wed, 4 DEC after I get back from some travel. Then we've got a little over 2 weeks of excitement to crown this year's winner. I'll put the final 4 owls in the banner again and the winner gets the icon.
Got a personal favorite you're ready to cheer on to victory?
Let me know which matches you are most looking forward to or dreading the most!
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!
Interesting, I didn't know many owls have still so little stuff known about them!
Treating owl of the year more as a beatuy contest is completely valid, and honestly, with all the amount of work you already put in (like finding and upscaling the images, and preparing this whole event and everything that comes with it!) it's more than fair to just keep it as is :) Your work is greatly appreciated and we're thankful for every minute you can spare on curating some owl content for all of us :)
It's getting me to learn a lot more than I had ever planned. I have some physical owl books I've bought, I read science journals, and I talk to rehabbers and zookeepers about laws and regulations to try to bring you guys new info that isn't general knowledge yet.
We tend to know our locals owls best, and Owl of the Year was originally a way to acclimate you all with some of the ones many of us have never heard of while still celebrating the ones we do. I expect a more common owl to do well, but I get excited when you embrace one that is more rare.