Both were tough battles to the finish yesterday, but your winners were clear:

Snowy Owl and White Faced Scops Owl!

Both of these owls have risen to the top, through many challengers to get here. Snowy and Screech were 2 of my original final 4 picks, Barn and Burrow were my other 2. My heart goes out to all the Flammy, Buffy , Sooty, and Big F’n Owl supporters. You guys really made this tournament go much more surprisingly than I had expected, and this whole experience was much more rewarding personally than I expected. You all really boosted the participation and excitement in this group, and it was very fun for me to get to interact with all of you.

I hope you all had fun too, and from all the positive comments (and most importantly maybe, not a single negative comment) that you all had fun as well. I’m hopeful this enthusiasm can continue, and we keep making this group better and better, and there will be lots of new owls for you to cheer on next year.

If you haven’t voted in the prize thread I encourage you to do that. Having the first place winner get the community icon and the 3 semi-finalists share the banner image is currently the top choice.

Of course Lemmy.World is doing image server work today of all days, so bear with me as I have to work around that with outside image hosting. I will get our final going today, and due to it being a bit delayed and the most important vote, I may leave it open a bit longer tomorrow to be sure everyone gets a chance to vote.

As always, and questions, comments, or grievances are welcome. Thank you all though for making this a really fun event and I hope we’re all here for it again next year!