Michaela Strachan is one of Britain’s best known TV presenters. She has been presenting for over 30 years on a variety of programmes including The Wide Awake Club, The Hitman And Her, Michaela’s Wild Challenge, Countryfile and The Really Wild Show, which she hosted for 15 years.

Michaela currently presents Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch with Chris Packham, Martin Hughes-Games and Gillian Burke for the BBC. Other programmes along the way have included OWL TV, Postcards From The Wild; The Great Penguin Rescue: Disneytime: Michaela’s Zoo Babies: Orangutan Diaries: Elephant Diaries and many more.

Michaela said:

“My first wildlife presenting was on a children’s show called OWL TV, which stood for ‘Outdoors and Wildlife’ – so it seems very fitting to be an ambassador for ‘Minerva’s Owls of Bath’ sculpture trail. I love the thought of colourful sculptured owls landing all over Bath – it’s a Really Wild idea!”

Chris Packham is a naturalist, television presenter, photographer, conservationist, campaigner, film maker and... Minerva’s Owl artist! Chris is a presenter of the BBC’s BAFTA Award-winning Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch series and presents notable natural history series such as Nature’s Weirdest Events,

World’s Weirdest Events, World’s Sneakiest Animals, Cats V Dogs, The Burrowers, Inside the Animal Mind, Operation Iceberg and Secrets of our Living Planet.

Chris will be painting one of the Minerva’s Owls sculptures to help raise funds for the UK Little Owl conservation project.

Chris is an enormous owl fan:

“People think owls are all about eyesight, and true enough, compared to us, they have incredible vision, but it’s their hearing that makes them such amazingly efficient hunters. A pair of barn owls need to catch an astonishing 10,000 voles a year to keep their family fed, but they entirely rely on hearing them squeaking. Incredible.”

Michael Eavis CBE is an English dairy farmer, but best known as the founder of the legendary Glastonbury Festival, which takes place at his farm in Pilton, Somerset. Michael, who is having a well deserved rest from the Glastonbury Festival this year, said he was delighted to a Minerva’s Owls Ambassador:

Although Glastonbury Festival is having a fallow year in 2018, there will be a Glastonbury Abbey Extravaganza in its place this August.

Michael said:

“We’re great owl fans here at Worthy Farm and have even have owls living behind the Pyramid Stage. Seeing giant painted owls all over Bath this summer should be quite a sight and I’m looking forward to an owl-prowl once they take up their perches later in the year.”

Professor Bettany Hughes has devoted the last 25 years to bringing the past to life. Her speciality is ancient and mediaeval history and culture.

Bettany has written and presented over 50 TV and radio documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4, Discovery, PBS, The History Channel, National Geographic, Discovery, BBC World and ITV. Her programmes have now been seen by over 250 million worldwide.

Bettany recently wrote and presented a new landmark BBC series on Socrates, the Buddha and Confucius, and followed that up with a new series on the classical influences on Freud, Nietzsche and Marx. For the last decade she has been researching a new history of Istanbul, which was published last year.

Bettany said:

“Two of the things I love about the world – ancient and modern – are the essential power of wisdom and the compelling charisma of art on the streets. Minerva’s Owls brilliantly embodies both and I’m delighted to be an event Ambassador.”

Andy has won many awards for his work and has a reputation for searching out and photographing wildlife in natural habitats to tell a visual story about the incredible beauty of the natural world.

Andy has won 9 consecutive awards in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition, as well as the US Wildlife Photographer of the Year and the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Species and has recently featured in television commercials for National Geographic and Nikon.

Andy is passionate about Owls. He has published over 17 books, including a stunning 96 page photographic book on Little Owls.

Signed copies of Andy’s Little Owls book are currently available from his website at www.andyrouse.co.uk

Andy said:

“I was amazed to hear that decorated Little Owl sculptures will be displayed across Bath this summer and I’m honoured to be an event Ambassador. I hope to come to Bath to give a talk about Little Owl photography later in the year. I can’t wait to see them!”