BIG CAT NEWS: It's all about Gloucestershire

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper column inches than any other cryptozoological subject.

There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived in some way by us, so we should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in.

It takes a long time to do, and is a fairly tedious task, so I am not promising that they will be done each day, but I will do them as regularly as I can. JD

'Big cat' mystery of huge paw prints in the snow at Marston Green
Birmingham Mail
By Mike Lockley
A BIG CAT mystery sparked by giant prints on a snow-covered car park has been solved by the Birmingham Mail. And our investigation proved there's nothing quite as bunny as nature. For the 'paw marks', spotted by Kieron McArdle...



This is probably the stupidest non-story in Big cat News this week. "The cleaning company director believed the marks – as big as a human footprint – may have been left by a big cat". This is just another sign of how our increasingly urbanised and sedentry society is becoming increasingly (yes, I know I have now used the word 'increasingly' three times in the same paragraph, which is probably not the best grammar) divorced from any interaction with the natural world. Its a rabbit as any fule should kno.

Its all happening in Gloucestershire, which seems to have been the veritable hub of British Big Cat news in the last few weeks. No some 'academics' have launched a study:

Academics to study big cat sightings
This is Gloucestershire
They cite Scotland's Loch Ness Monster and the Abominable Snowman as examples. Rhiannon Fisher, a lecturer at the Royal Agricultural College and a part-time PhD student in the CCRI, added, "We are not saying that there is or is not a wild cat in the ...

And yet another Gloucestershire sighting:

Another 'bit cat' spotted in Gloucestershire
This is Gloucestershire
Helen Stratford, of Teddington Gardens, Upton St Leonards, said she spotted a large cat in fields by her house on Saturday evening around 5.40pm. She said she was "shocked" by the sighting, which happened as she walked her dog.

It doesn't actually give a description so it is not really that useful. But here's another - you've guessed it - from Gloucestershire. Except that it's not. It is a round up of sightings from the last seven years, which presents a useful overview, but for a moment I was getting excited. A lion? pride comes before a fall.

Forget Gloucestershire big cats – 'lion' spotted near M5 – This is ...
By admin
Forget Gloucestershire big cats - 'lion' spotted near M5, CONCERNED callers alerted county police to more than 60 suspected big cat sightings in seven years – including a lion next to the M5 motorway. Gloucestershire Constabulary figures show they received 61 calls about what people believed were big cats in …

Big Cats In The UK ?I had recently read in the newspaper about this topic and found it to be quite strange and most likely fake but i had googled it and found video's and.http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.alien-ufos.com/cryptozoology-botany-animal-kingdom/47873-big-cats-uk.html&ct=ga&cad=CAcQAhgBIAEoBDAmOANA1ebz-QRIAVgAYgVlbi1VUw&cd=0oU5hjAaz8E&usg=AFQjCNHvmSj7CF0uarXFG6fD6l9zROjAVQ

This is a link to a forum comment by some bloke called 'Space Marine' linking to a Daily Mail article about Rick Minter's new book. Well, I have a lot of respect for Rick and look forward to reading it. And, yes. I believe that Rick Minter does live in Gloucestershire or somewhere in that neck of the woods.

Finally for today, a radio interview about the Beast of Stroud. Now guess which country Stroud is in..

Audioboo / The Big Cat of StroudThe wide eyed, tin hat wearing solo brigade that is Richard Firth is brimming with excitement at the prospect of heading up to Stroud to meet big cat aficionado ...

WATCHER OF THE SKIES: Red kites, garden blizzard and squacco heron

As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... about out of place birds, rare vagrants and basically all things feathery and Fortean.

Because we live in strange times, there are more and more bird stories that come her way, so she has now moved onto the main CFZ bloggo with a new column with the same name as her afore-mentioned ones....

Lamb is not on the menu
The lambing season is upon us and some farmers may be getting jittery about the safety of their lambs from aerial bombardment. The red kite is making itself at home once more in Northern Ireland after a long absence of 200 years and is beginning to spread its wings as it expands its territory. Put the two together, and it makes for instant mistrust from the farmers on the ground, but means nothing much to the latter.

The RSPB have assured farmers that their lambs are safe from aerial attacks from red kites. The species is – at heart – a scavenger that prefers to eat worms, scraps, frogs, carcasses, with the odd mouse or rat thrown in for a change.

According to Adam McClure, RSPB red kite officer, “Appearances may be deceiving, but the red kite is actually a bit of a wimp. These birds may look amazing wheeling high above, but they do not have the size, power or the agility to take prey on the move. Kites can be lazy too, if they can get a meal without killing, so much the better.”

Picture credit: red kite - RSPB

Blizzard of birds hits frozen gardens
The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) Garden BirdWatch results have revealed that vast numbers of birds have visited gardens over recent days. Two migrant thrushes to our shores – the fieldfare and the redwing – have led this invasion. The BTO Garden BirdWatch is a year-round survey which has also shown that the song thrush has increased its numbers by 72% and the mistle thrush by 49%. Even the well-known blackbird numbers are up by a third. Even in the south west, where the bad weather did not make its presence too badly known there have been increases in numbers.
Tim Harrison, BTO Garden BirdWatch, commented: “Many householders will be really disappointed that this huge influx of birds has come a week too late for their RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch count. Thankfully, however, people can make their garden count all year round through BTO Garden BirdWatch.”

According to data collected by BTO, it appears that our resident bird populations are quite sensitive to severe weather in the winter. Last year the numbers of robins and wrens dropped by a third, song thrushes by a quarter and dunnocks by a fifth, compared with the five-year average. However 2011 saw a bumper breeding season which helped offset these bad losses. This, in turn, though means “that this year there are lots of inexperienced birds out there feeling the cold.”

He continued: “The survival of these birds is on a knife-edge but there is much that householders can do to help. Peanuts, finely grated cheese and beef suet can provide a calorific hit; windfall or fresh fruit will help sustain thrushes, and sunflower hearts are a particular favourite with finches.”

He concluded: “The other important way to help is by counting your visitors. You can do this whatever the weather through BTO Garden BirdWatch.”
For a free BTO Garden BirdWatch enquiry pack, email mailto:gbw%40bto.org, tel. 01842 750050, or write to GBW, BTO, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 2PU.
http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/gbw/join

Update on BTO cuckoos
Two of the tracked cuckoos seem to be heading north , but there is some disagreement at the BTO as to whether this marks the start of migration or not. Lyster and Martin are the two birds in question , but Clement and Chris have not moved much, in fact it would seem that Clement has stayed in the same area as he was when he arrived in the Congo. Unfortunately, the fifth cuckoo, Kasper, had a period of non-transmission - there could have been several reasons for this: tag failure, poor tag charging due to the weather, or because Kasper had been staying under the forest canopy. There was also the very real chance – of course – that he had fallen foul of a predator. He had not been heard from since 6th January, and those back home were understandably getting worried. But on 7th February he suddenly popped up again and proved to the furthest north of all five of our intrepid travellers.
You can read more, see maps and read individual cuckoo blogs at the BTO website: http://www.bto.org/science/migration/tracking-studies/cuckoo-tracking

Rare birds spark rise in number of visitors
The Attenborough Nature Centre, in Barton Lane, Attenborough, Nottingham has seen a 10% increase in its number of visitors over the last two months. Staff believe that the increase in the number of rare birds seen has sparked this boost. Erin McDaid, from the centre, said:
"One of the highlights for birdwatchers was the appearance of the squacco (Ardeola ralloides) heron in November, which saw more than 500 people turn up just to see it.

"We also had six pairs of Cetti's warblers (Cettia cetti) breeding in October which was a great success and brought a lot of people to the centre.

"I think people are realising they can see some fantastic wildlife on their doorstep all year round and that's bringing people back to the centre."

The centre also runs bird-watching sessions, tree identification classes and nature walks around the site. It also runs a school programme to raise environmental awareness among youngsters – with this scheme welcoming it's 20,000th child last year.

Picture credit: squacco heron Wikipedia

http://www.attenboroughnaturecentre.co.uk/

CFZ PEOPLE: Lars Thomas URGENT

Jeanett Thomas (48) is still missing. There is no news from Lars Thomas. He made an appeal on Danish TV the other night and the story has been on the front page of the biggest Danish Newspapers. The story has proliferated across the Internet and the cryptozoological community has rallied around. Loren has posted details on cryptomundo, and many other cryptozoological sites have done the same.

We can only repeat what we posted yesterday:

On Friday his wife Jeanett left home. She was only meant to be gone a few hours, but she has disappeared. There has been no contact from her.

Lars has contacted the police, but asks: "Please, if you know, or have heard anything, let me know".

Contact Lars: lars_thomas@msn.com
Or me: jon@eclipse.co.uk

Our thoughts and prayers are with Lars at this terrible time.

DALE DRINNON: Neanderthal posts

Two new Neanderthal-themed postings fresh this morning at the blogs.

First another account of another American Neanderthal (Teeth found in Virginia)
http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2012/02/another-american-neanderthal.html

And then a longer piece on Surviving Neanderethals including a contribution from Boris Porshnev and the curious circumstance of a Neanderthal Warrior buried in chainmail from midieval Poland:
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/02/neanderthal-skeleton-in-chainmail-and.html

PECULIAR (IF MILDLY WITTY) CAMPAIGN AGAINST DOGS FOULING PUBLIC PLACES IN IDAHO..

No, Boise. There is no poop fairy.
Boise Weekly
"Like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, the fabled poop fairy has been the stuff of legend. Flying undetected in parks, neighborhoods and schoolyards, she was said to follow close behind dogs and their owners — picking up what the dog left behind, ...

THAT BLOODY MAMMOTH - The Story Continues

The saga of the Siberian "mammoth" video trundles on. Yesterday I wrote that the whole affair was a scam (as was the affair of the Icelandic "river monster") but today the dudes behind the scam have been revealed. However, what has NOT been revealed is HOW they did it. I for one am more interested in finding out whether the original elephantine images were:

1. CGI
2. A bear eating a salmon
3. An elephant doing something elephanty
4. A mammoth

So watch this space...

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/a-mammoth-deception-the-real-story-behind-siberian-sensation-20120216-1tab2.html

BIG CAT NEWS: Gloucestershire sighting/Farmers Weekly Poll

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper column inches than any other cryptozoological subject.

There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived in some way by us, so we should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in.

It takes a long time to do, and is a fairly tedious task, so I am not promising that they will be done each day, but I will do them as regularly as I can. JD

Big cat spotted crossing A40 in Andoversford
This is Gloucestershire
CONVERT: Beverley Jones said she did not believe previous big cat sightings, until she spotted an animal running across the road. Inset: a big cat She said the animal, which was the size of a dog, ran out across the road and into the nearby woods.

The sightings in Gloucestershire continue. Beverley Jones appears to be an eminently sensible witness. She makes no extraordinary claims about the animal she describes as "...exactly like a domestic cat but it was bigger. I slowed down almost to a stop and saw it run into the woodlands. It was the size of a Labrador and black in colour. It had a long tail, the size of its body, which curled at the end. I know what I saw and it was not a dog."

Farmers back big cat claims in FW poll
FarmersWeekly
More than half of FWi users believe that big cats are roaming wild in the UK countryside. That's the statistic revealed by responses to FW's Weekly Poll, with 58% of the 700 respondents so far convinced that the animals are at large.

I am actually surprised that only 58% of respondees believe in the cats! I would have expected the figure to be considerably higher.

JON'S JOURNAL: Wot No Curlews?

For the third day running I went to Northam Burrows this afternoon, in an attempt to film the herd of curlews that we saw the other day. (Yes, the collective noun for a group of curlews is a 'herd'. Thank you for that, Corinna).

Nope, there was nothing there.

The only thing that we did see was a huge flock of some birds or other (possibly starlings) in the middle distance. Graham hiked off to get close enough to photograph them, but a dog being walked by a young bloke in garish sportwear ran up to them and the flock flew off.

The moral of the story here is, not only CHECK YOUR BATTERIES BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE which is not only common sense but pretty much self evident, but also a more philosophical one.

Basically, when one has a magickal experience due to the good offices of Mother Nature, and - believe me - seeing a whole herd of these comical birds skittering about earnestly, like badly animated clockwork figures (I was sooooo reminded of The Mouse and his Child) is a truly magickal experience - these things are one-offs, and should be treated as such. Mother Nature isn't some crappy cable network. Magickal experiences like a herd of curlews don't happen on the hour every hour with gaps for advert breaks.

No siree. It doesn't work like that.

So if - like me - you wish to be a humble supplicant worship at the altar of Mother Nature, you had better make sure your camera works properly. Here endeth the Gospel for today.

There were also so many people there including revolting adolescent males on trials bikes, and the aforementioned bloke in his designer sportware, that I began to get cross, so we went home via Boots (yes, I finally managed to get my diabetic shortbread HUZZAH!!!) and stopped off at Kennerland where we found that my gloomy prognostications were correct, and the recent cold snap did indeed kill off all the January frogspawn, which is now sadly rotting away (see bottom picture).

HELEN TAYLOR SENT ME THIS (bless her little cotton socks)

DARREN DISCUSSES AUSTRALIAN MYSTERY CATS

Williams and Lang's Australian Big Cats: do pumas, giant feral cats and ...

Scientific American (blog)
By Darren Naish February 13, 2012 Virtually all people interested in animals are aware of the so-called 'mystery big cat' phenomenon. Large, often black, cats are reported with apparent frequency from the eastern USA and the UK.

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED HOW NICK REDFERN GOT INVOLVED IN THE FORTEAN WORLD?

On far more than a few occasions, people have asked me what it was that prompted me to immerse myself deeply in the worlds of flying saucers, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Roswell, Area 51, Mothman, the Men in Black and…well, you get the picture, right? Actually, there was not one reason, but several. All of them were linked to matters of a definitive supernatural, conspiratorial, or just plain weird nature, but in very different ways. And here they are…

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2012/02/in-the-beginning/

HAUNTED SKIES: Times (The) 15.9.62

http://hauntedskies.blogspot.com/2012/02/times-15962.html