Birmingham's Big Hoot owls reach final weekend
Huge decorated owls, part of a city-wide art exhibition, will be removed from positions around Birmingham later.
The Big Hoot has seen 89 owls, 5ft 5ins (165cm) tall and individually designed by professional and amateur artists, perch around the city for 10 weeks. An app to accompany the project was downloaded over 13,000 times and people have scanned the owls with phones more than 323,000 times, organisers said. The owls will eventually be auctioned for Birmingham Children's Hospital. They will go on public display again at Millennium Point on 10 and 11 October, before the auction on 15 October. It is hoped the sale will raise £500,000 for the children's hospital. Louise McCaffrey, director of fundraising at the hospital, said: "We knew it was going to be adopted and loved by the people of Birmingham, but the success of it is more than we could have hoped for." Schools designed 122 smaller owls which will not be auctioned off, but returned to them as mementos.