WINNER: SNOWY OWL 85-70
❄️ The Battle of Ice and Fire is here! 🔥
From the North, we have the transcontinental champion of the meme, the squishable polar bear of an owl, the one with the big fuzzy feet, the eater of lemmings, THE SNOWY OWL!
Few of us doubted the Snowy Owl would make it here. It’s taken a look at every opponent and said O RLY? Even non-owl fanatics know and love this big plump owl.
Its opponent, from the toasty American Southwest, the tiny titan with a heart of fire, the muncher of moths big and small, the bird whose flaming spirit you can see on its face, THE FLAMMULATED OWL!
This tiny owl has developed a cult following here since taking down the North American King of Owls, the Great Horned Owl. A call had gone out for a new, unknown owl to lead us into the future of owl-ness. Can Flammy answer that call?
Which owl will go forward, and which will be left behind? Upvote your favorite now!
Snowy Owl
You’re going down Snow!
O rly?
Flame on! 🔥
I like Flammy, but I had to vote Snowy. Look at those feets!
You’re right! I haven’t noticed the feet. I have to reconsidere my vote now… And I brag so much about voting flammy * facepalm *
Feet make the raptor after all!
Maybe we could get a flammy-big-feet by crossbreeding…
Crossbreed owls is a topic I’m looking into!
Not me literally breeding them, me researching them!
Snowy feet may be the best feet! So big and so fluffy!
That last photo, looks so conniving! Definitely up to no good!. Good or bad, snowy owls have been a favourite of mine since I was a kid. Impressive beasts!
They are! I really want to see one in person.
Flammulated Owl
I vote flammulated, amazing coloring!
Hard agree there. It really has the look of a creature born of the Earth. It’s an ancient tree in bird form.
I couldn’t make up my mind until your comment. Ent owl it is!
Hanging out in the pines,
Red flare like the sun;
Flammy won’t stop,
'til they’re number 1!
I love these inspired poems!
Adds a touch of class to the place…
It flies
How like a bird
Wait that’s a bird
That’s not just a bird
That’s a motherfucking flammulated owl
Look at all the flammules
Aww
Flammy forever! 🔥💕
Fabulous photos and a beautiful owl, but those snowies…!
Those eyes, those damn eyes. So beautifully haunting
Oh man, it’s getting harder to decide…
I know, there’s so many great owls out there!
I’m very happy how everything has went overall. It’s been far less predictable than I had first thought. It’s great to see everyone putting thought into this and really getting into the spirit of things while still being nice to each other.
Thanks again for doing this!
I second that - this is such a fun idea and great way to learn about owls!
It’s been a ton of fun, and it’s been great seeing even more of the regulars like yourself, but especially these last few days so many names I’ve never seen comment before!
I always forget to ask you, are you just named after the actual Hussars, or is it a reference to the Sabaton song about those Hussars? If it’s alluding to the band, I found a YouTube channel the other day where a historian teams up with the singer to discuss the history of the events of the songs and I enjoyed it, so if that was relevant to you, I thought you may enjoy it.
The name is for the actual hussars, but I’ll check out the band! I’m always eager to listen to new music
Winged Hussars fan music video
This version has some film footage attached. The song is what lead me to learn about the Hussars. Sabaton is mainly war documentary nerd songs. They’re a Swedish power metal band, so I learn all kinds of European history stuff from the songs I hear.
Another song I enjoyed learning from is “Father” about Fritz Haber, one half of of the inventors of the Nobel Prize winning Haber Bosch Process.
His work saved millions of lives, discovering a method to convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia for fertilizer. It is attributed to quadrupling world crop yields, allowing for the population boom of the 20th century. Haber and Bosch are considered by many to be the most significant scientists in all history, because their discovery (by production amounts anyway) ended world hunger forever.
Unfortunately, he is also known as the Father of Chemical Warfare. During Germany’s wars, he chose to forgo helping the world and focused on “helping” his homeland. He proposed gassing trenches in WWI, weaponising chlorine, and his research lead to the creation of Zyklon B.
“Cliffs of Gallipoli” also got me to learn more about this epic failure. European history and even anything about WWI is so ignored in the US education system. It’s crazy a nerdy metal band has to teach me about world history, but whatever works…
Very cool channel, I appreciate you sharing! You were correct, I very much enjoyed the song - I’ll be checking out the rest of Sabaton’s music for sure
Good, I’m glad! It’s funny the things that can springboard learning.
muncher of moths
You can’t lose a vote with this argument.
Well I read it’s primary food was butterflies and moths. I know people like butterflies, so I didnt think that was in its favor. Has anyone ever met a person who said, “hey, my favorite animal is the moth!” ?
After talking all these guys up for so long now, there’s only so much new stuff for me to throw out there! 😅
If you’re still not sure who to vote for, you should know that Flammy’s Dutch name is absolute fire: Ponderosadwergooruil!
Ponderosa - (Latin) most common conifer tree in the NW US
Dwergooruil - (Dutch) Scops Owl
Ponderosa itself is from ponderosus, meaning large, heavy, or weighty. So the owl is definitely named for the tree, not its size!
Thanks, I was already wondering about the first (Latin) part of the name. The literal translation of dwerg-oor-uil is dwarf eared owl. Is that the same as scops Owl? Maybe the Ponderosa part doesn’t refer to the trees either, but to Flammy’s fanbase right now; it’s getting quite large now!
Oh, apologies, I didn’t notice your instance, so I’ll assume your actual Dutch is a million times better. 😅
What a Scops Owl is gets a little tricky. The Indian Scops Owl was the first to be named Scops, specifically Otus scops. Both are Greek words, otus meaning horned/eared, and skops meaning little owl. So Scops Owls used to include the ones you’re probably thinking, based on that description, the stout little horned owls like the Screech Owl and our new little buddy, the Flammulated Owl.
The problem was that there were too many Scops Owls, that there were enough differences between them three genus got split up. Screech Owls got assigned to Megascops. Flammulated guy assigned to Psiloscops. There’s a few other new Scops genuses, but they usually only have 1 or 2 species in them. Now Otus refers to the Old World (African and Eurasian) Scops Owls. So now Scops are. Basically any owl that looks sorta like a Screech Owl, but isn’t in the Americas.
Flammys are found in those Ponderosa forests of the American West, so it makes sense they’d get that name.
Indian Scops Owl
Thank you so much!
Of course!
Snowy
Let it snow!
#SnowyLyyyfe
I love snowy owls but I gotta vote flammy on this. Forgive me
