Nicky & Cookie

As the name suggests, this place is awesome … Highlights include a wooden jail house full of hundreds of owl collectable toys and ornaments of every material imaginable ( Mum your barn owl tea towel was on the wall in there ), glow worms, Weka birds that look a bit like evil chickens but can run down and kill rabbits, and rip guinea pugs limb from limb, ( there were no demos ) plus of course some Owls!

A charismatic Scotsman called Don toured us around the vegetation in a fashion that David Bellamy would be proud of. Followed by the Carol Smiley of the Owl world taking us into a dark shed and prodding sleeping owls for us to prove they weren’t stuffed ;) My favourite bit was the inspired naming of the latest owl baby, Mike-Owl-Jackson. Things we sadly had to miss out on were the dancing pig that begs for food and a ride on the miniature ( or should that be giant? ) Thomas the Tank Engine train. I guess it depends if you consider Thomas the Tank Engine to be middle sized in the first place! I’ll leave that up to you. Anyway … Owl names became the game of the day. We’ve helpfully created a list of ideas for future owl inmates ( feel free to add your own… )

Owl Pacino
Owl Gore
M-Owl-colm X
Owl-vin Stardust
Owl-ister Cambell
Owl-ly MacBealle
Owl-exander The Great
M-Owl-rilyn Monroe
M-Owl-rilyn Manson
H-Owl-rald Shipman
Owl-sama bin Laden
R-Owl-nalf Feines
Owl-an Whiticker
Owl-nald Swartzenager
… and a million more I can’t remember