We’re at the end of the first round, and basically halfway through the tournament. Today we meet the last of our competitors. The choices will only get harder from here in out, so choose carefully! For the last entrants, we have a pair of mostly monochromatic owls-one you know, and one you likely don’t. You guys have stuck with most of the classics this year, Milky over the Little Owl being the only real outlier. Do you have another surprise in store for me today?

First up, the second most popular owl of last year, we all know it-the Snowy! This is one of the biggest and fluffiest owls; a necessity as it spends most of its time above the Arctic Circle. Snowies are a favorite of owl-ologists. As migratory owls, tossing a tracker on them gets us valuable data from places that aren’t too hospitable or traversable for us. As you might infer from the rise of Snowy posts recently, Snowies will venture further south during the winter in search of food and some additional comfort.

The Black and White is a medium owl of Latin America and northernmost South America. Found in the wetlands and rain forest, this owl hunts mostly in the canopy for beetles and cicadas, though it will also take a bat, rodent, bird, or amphibian should the opportunity present itself. Like the Buffy Fish Owl, the B&W only lays a single egg at a time. Egg clutch sizes for bird species often shrink as they get closer to the equator. The Snowy, on the other hand, can last over 10 at the other extreme.

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