FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.

• Mass beech tree flowering points to potential pest...
• Urban areas no place for native birds
• Fine of $1 million for wind farm bird kills

DALE DRINNON: Long necked seal, eastern bigfoot, Frontiers of Anthropology, Cedar & Willow, Benny's Blogs

New at the Frontiers of Zoology:

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/12/another-long-necked-seal.html

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2013/12/larry-surfaces-portrait-of-eastern.html

New at Frontiers of Anthropology:

http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2013/12/neanderthaldenisovan-ancestor-dna-found.html

http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-survivors-ojibwa-tribe.html

New at Cedar and Willow:

http://cedar-and-willow.blogspot.com/2013/12/meet-drakes.html

New at Benny's Other Blog, The Ominous Octopus Omnibus:

 

http://bennypdrinnon.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-moon-struck-unicorn-and-pieface.html

Best Wishes, Dale D

TODAY'S BIG CAT ROUND UP

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 by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. 

The worldwide mystery cat phenomenon (or group of phenomena, if we are to be more accurate) is not JUST about cryptozoology. At its most basic level it is about the relationship between our species and various species of larger cat. That is why, sometimes, you will read stories here which appear to have nothing to do with cryptozoology, but have everything to do with human/big cat interaction. As committed Forteans, we believe that until we understand the nature of these interactions, we have no hope of understanding the truth that we are seeking. 

NEWSLINK: New Theory on Cheetah Predation Gives Li...

US SIGHTINGS: MYSTERY MONDAY: Panther Sightings Cr...

NEWSLINK: Did big cats first roam Asia?

FEATURELINK: Candid Camera (Trap): The World's Rar...

AUSTRALIA SIGHTINGS: Big cats in the bush - Off Tr...

NEWSLINK: Tiger mauls, eats tribal in Nagarahole t...

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN PICKS UP THE PIECES

The Gonzo Daily - Friday

www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/about.html

 

My parents were peculiar people. When I was a boy there were certain people whose names were never to be spoken in the house. The Duke of Windsor was one. Gandhi was another. "You know he was terribly anti British", my Mother would say in hushed tones. And another was Nelson Mandela. They were more vehement about him than they were about Gerry Adams (probably because he was black). My relationship with my parents was so bad that this fact alone would have probably made me a Mandela fan overnight. But by most people's standards he was a great man, and even by my parents' standards he was an important one. Now the Grand Old Man of African politics is dead after nearly a century of struggle. Rest in Peace, sir.

 

Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_6.html

 

Today's Track of the Day is an appropriate one for the day.
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-gonzo-track-of-day.html

 

Robert Wyatt in Blurt Magazine
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/robert-wyatt-in-blurt-magazine.html

 

Irish Actor Gabriel Byrne Talks Pope Francis with Michael Des Barres
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/irish-actor-gabriel-byrne-talks-pope.html

 

Frank Zappa’s Gnarly Mixed Feelings About “Valley Girl”
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/frank-zappas-gnarly-mixed-feelings.html

Touring: The Crimson ProjeKCt Takes On Europe in Spring
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/touring-crimson-projekct-takes-on.html

 

*  The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at  jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...

*  The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

 

* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!

*  Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange cat?

CRYPTOLINK: Bounty for Bigfoot

A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. 

OK, enough with the grainy footage, the first-person accounts and questionable evidence. Spike TV is looking to get to the bottom of this whole Bigfoot mystery once and for all with its next reality competition series, "10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty."

Now read on...

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

From Nick Redfern's World of Whatever:

• Forbidden Bigfoot: Reviewed — Sasquatch and high strangeness...

From CFZ-USA:

• Dan Simmons strikes again — A new novel about the Yeti...
• The Wonders of DNA — Does DNA store the memories of our ancestors?
• Where doth Bigfoot lurk? — Bird watchers see birds, but what do Bigfoot watchers see?
• Journal of Cryptozoology — The second issue is now available. ...

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

Yesterday’s News Today
http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

Yesterday Nelson Mandela died. Mandela was a legend of our times and his example of how people should live their lives in equality and reconciliation shames racists and the politics of hate the world over. My own meeting with Nelson Mandela in Cardiff in June 1998 had a profound effect on my life: A large crowd had gathered outside the hotel where he was staying prior to receiving the freedom of the freedom of the City of Cardiff hoping to catch a glimpse of the great man. Normally when a politician exits a hotel they do so with a wave to the crowd before sloping off into the waiting car, but Mandela was different. He went around the entire crowd of at least 200 people and shook everybody’s hand, not just the people at the front. Mandela knew that shaking hands with people meant something, it meant that you were a fellow traveller in life, no matter how rich or poor you were what colour your skin was or how able bodied you were... This is what many politicians do not understand with their fake smiles, waving and hollow platitudes like “we're all in it together.” (which amounts to the same thing as “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”). Mandela got this and that is why he was a bit late to the ceremony that day.

And now the news:

Workers try again to save whales in Everglades

Multiple Mates Worth the Risk for Female Prairie D...

1000 leopard claws seized in India

EU lends weight to campaign to protect endangered ...

A last chance to save Australia’s Great Barrier Re...

Python's Extreme Eating Abilities Explained

Crocodiles Are Cleverer Than Previously Thought: S...

Harlequin ladybirds escape natural 'enemies'

Why it is ethical to kill deer but let the badgers...

Here is Mandela receiving the freedom of the city and county of Cardiff not long after I met him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYBcIHTBDxs