Round 2 brings us a very distinguished pair of birds.
Spectacled Owl has made a splash this year and has the potential to shake up this tournament, but this is going to be its first real challenge.
Speck is a larger owl and claims a lot of territory from the tropics of Mexico to Trinidad and all the way down into Argentina. It’s the largest owl in almost all of its range, as the Great Horned Owl won’t usually venture into the tropical forests. That makes the Spectacled Owl one of the biggest nighttime threats to all kinds of arboreal mammals. It will even go after smaller Scops owls, crabs, frogs, and just about anything else it can get its talons on.
And we can’t forget those distinct facial patterns that give it that namesake spectacles. It’s a pretty basic pattern, but it’s beautiful in effect. There’s no mistaking this owl for any other.
Another black and white beauty, who did well in last year’s games, is the aptly named Black and White Owl. Found in different types of humid forest from Mexico to Peru, this medium owl has a prison stripe look and an orange beak.
BnW hunts the canopies looking for insects and bats. Unlike the more secluded Spectacled Owl, the BnW can occasionally be seen hunting bats by streetlight. Its relative indifference to humans makes it a popular owl to search for in ecotourism in the region.
Which black beauty is your favorite today?
I think the dark backdrops really show off the striping nicely. I hadn’t been looking for that specifically, the best photos I saw just all happened to be at night for it