37

Quite contrary to the common belief, owls are very social animals and indeed form flocks or rather tightly bound families with a common social codex. At sunset, they all meet before going on their individual hunting trip, and they eye themselves very carefully. Any owl not belonging to the group is sho-who-whoed away immediately!

Now this evening, the owls are all excited and agitated: A single owl from another region has sneaked into the flock and is trying to pass as one of them! This can not be!

Can you identify the owl which is behaving anti-socially (i.e. not following the flock rules) in the image below?

A valid answer must contain the flock-rules and why that particular owl is not following it. The puzzle can be solved with a black-and-white printout of the image.

Owl-Picture

u-ndefined
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BmyGuest
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    I have no idea what I'm looking at and I totally love this. – Bailey M Jun 25 '15 at 16:41
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    I would like to point out that I like this so much I stole it. However, I have to point something out: Your title says sunset but your question says dawn. – Engineer Toast Jun 25 '15 at 20:44
  • @EngineerToast Just hope you haven't chosen the same rules I've prepared for my 2nd owl-puzzle (also having an outsider-pair)! We'll see. thanks for pointing out my timing-issue. Corrected now. – BmyGuest Jun 25 '15 at 21:26
  • Maybe our owls can do battle. Based on your previous puzzles, yours will be the better strategists by far. Mine have a mercenary hawk, though, so that helps. – Engineer Toast Jun 25 '15 at 21:54
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    Lovely puzzle - but still says "Now this dawn..." at the start of the second paragraph. – Floris Jun 25 '15 at 22:00
  • reminds me of this puzzle – JLee Jun 25 '15 at 23:35
  • @JLee Yes, that one impressed me a long time ago and was in the back of my mind when coming up with this one. – BmyGuest Jun 26 '15 at 06:11
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    Did you know that real owls can't move their eyes at all? They have evolved huge eyeballs in order to be able to see at night, in fact so huge that there was no more room left for muscles that could move their eyes. They look around by turning their heads instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl#Vision – zovits Jun 26 '15 at 10:22
  • @zovits Thanks. I knew, but it always help to get some additional trivia added ;c) – BmyGuest Jun 26 '15 at 10:27
  • your puzzles have the coolest graphics. are you a graphic artist? also, congrats on becoming a trusted user! – JLee Jun 26 '15 at 12:55
  • @JLee Thanks. No, my profession lies in Science & Coding. The owls were actually inspired by a pattern on a blouse I've seen :c) – BmyGuest Jun 26 '15 at 12:57

2 Answers2

27

Is it the 3rd owl in the 6th row? The pattern I have seen is that

each owl must have a unique eye orientation in either its row or in its vertical column. The owl I marked in red in the below image has the exact same eye orientation as the owl two places to its right (my right, owl's left) and two places above it.
If one creates an image with "unique eye-pairs" which appear at least 3 times, then one gets:
Uniques
and there is only one square which sits in a column and row which hosts another identically coloured pixel (light blue). This is the odd one out!

So this is a copycat owl who needs to be sho-who-ed away before he learns the ways of this flock.

To clarify:

Owls.png

BmyGuest
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CodeNewbie
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    Congratulations. You've found it! I'll take the liberty of adding an image to your solution for clarification with an edit. – BmyGuest Jun 25 '15 at 19:02
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Here's my answer:

enter image description here

This one little owl is looking away from the rest, while all other owls are looking at another one with at least 1 eye

Alex
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    Except the 1st (and 7th and 8th) on the top row... Or the 3rd, and 4th on the bottom row. So, sorry, not the solution, but nice try. – BmyGuest Jun 25 '15 at 16:47
  • @BmyGuest Well, the circled is looking away from all the other owls and is looking in a direction not looked by any other owl with its two eyes :P – Mr Pie Apr 30 '19 at 14:23
  • @MrPie But the same could be said for the 4th on the bottom row... – BmyGuest Apr 30 '19 at 19:37
  • @BmyGuest ah, I didn't notice that! Well, you are the puzzle-creator, so I shouldn't doubt you ;) – Mr Pie Apr 30 '19 at 20:59
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    @MrPie Oh no, I've made enough mistakes in my puzzles that a 2nd unintended solution is perfectly possible. This, however, is luckily none :c) – BmyGuest May 01 '19 at 10:39
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    I'm glad that my answer from 4 years ago is still....active hah! – Alex May 01 '19 at 14:43