Twit Twoo

These magnificent birds were on show in the High Street, helping raise money for The Barn Owl Centre. The charity, based on the edge of Gloucester, has the following aim - "To advance public education in Owl & Raptor welfare & husbandry."

The first owl is a Long Eared Owl, the second photo shows a Little Owl (original!) and the last owl is the most common in the UK, the Barn Owl.


The owl is a magnificently handsome bird of prey. Below are some interesting Owl Facts to impressive your friends and family with -

• Owls belong to the Order Strigiformes, which contains over 200 different species.
• Owls are nocturnal and hunt small mammals, small birds and some hunt fish.
• Their eyes are fixed in the sockets. They rotate their head 270 degrees to see back over there shoulders.
• Many breeds have special flight feathers for silent flying.
• They are long sighted and use feathers similar to whiskers to sense the prey in their beaks.
• The largest owl has a wing span of 2 meters.
• The Twit Twoo sound they make is actually Ke-wick Hoo-hoo-oooo.
  

Cheltenham Nightspots - 4

Continuing the series of the towns bars, clubs and pubs here is The Night Owl. This club, on the High Street, is not the sort of place that plays my kind of music, so I've never been inside but I wanted to tell you something about it. Not knowing anything about it I checked out their website http://www.nightowlclub.co.uk/ and I was so suprised by the history of the club behind the door that the info below is taken from their website :-

"Going back to the early 60s when it all started as a milk bar frequented by the mods on their scooters. Egg & Bacon was the local hang out for the young and restless of Cheltenham. For a while it was a dancehall under the name SPA Lounge. In the late 60s it changed incarnation again. This time the venue was called Blue Moon. It became the premiere circuit venue for the Gloucestershire area. Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Mott The Hoople, Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart to name but a few, played up the stairs in the corner stage. The Four Tops played their very first UK show at the Blue Moon, which it remained to be during most of the 70s.
Then in the early 80s the club changed management yet again and turned in to The Night Owl. What started with the scooters and the mods back in the early years, now turned in to a dedicated bikers and rock venue.
Another name change to Mistys didn’t mean it changed genre. Still a rock club up until 1996 when it turned in to The Attic which is when Stuart “Stu” Challoner got involved. Still focusing on rock music, with up and coming bands playing live, The Attic featured artists such as Stereophonics and Feeder."

Now the club, once again The Night Owl, is undergoing a refurbishment and has a promising future. Who knows whether todays unknown rock bands featured here will become as famous as some of those that played The Night Owl in the past? Lets hope so.