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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Monday, May 31, 2010

CCTV Picture..

The other day I posted this video, which I was sent by an American TV researcher. I was not aware that it had been so widely distributed and am quite surprised that I have not seen it before. I always look for zoological explanations if I can, and Robert Schneck wrote:

Hi Jon,


Assuming it's not a CGI hoax, it might be a wading bird, an egret perhaps, walking directly towards the camera. Why it's walking around at night I couldn't guess, though something might have disturbed it.


Sincerely,

Robert


On the other hand, my lovely wife Corinna suggested that it could be a snake rearing up.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'd agree with you; this is most probably an egret walking around slowly. If the light source to the left is visible light and not an infrared illuminator (impossible to tell from the footage, BTW) then this could explain why the bird doesn't look too disorientated. As far as birds are concerned any light at all including the unearthly orange glow of low-pressure sodium street lights is sometimes enough to wake them up in the night and start them off singing.

One other point is perhaps worth mentioning here on colours on CCTV. At home I have a monochrome CCTV which has very good infrared sensitivity, i.e. no infrared cut filter as most digital cameras do. Viewed through this camera a dark blue coat that is relatively inconspicuous to the human eye at night or in twilight is highly visible to the infrared vision of this camera; it looks about the same "colour" as a white t-shirt.

So, the colour of the bird on this video is most unlikely to be realistic, and the animal is probably a lot more drab to human eyes than the camera makes it appear.