GUEST BLOGGER JAN EDWARDS: Searching for spiders

We have been in contact with Jan for ages, and it is with great pleasure that we welcome her aboard, not only as a guest blogger, but as a Co. Durham representative for the CFZ. With Davy Curtis already at the helm in the country, the two of them will make a dream team par excellence...

You’ve probably noticed we’ve had a bit of snow in the UK of late. In the frozen North here in the High North Pennines, it is 3 foot deep in the fields, drifting to 5 foot by the dry stone walls. The sanctuary cats are sleeping in the warmth of the kitchen, dreaming of summertime, but outside its below zero.

With the cats all snug and snoring indoors, it’s a good time to catch up on what birds are visiting the sanctuary’s nuts (so to speak) and the other bird-feeding stations we have round the place.

We have the usual suspects – from robins to starlings; jackdaws raiding the bird table; occasional sparrow hawks, various songbirds... but it’s the wrens I find the most amazing.

These little brown specks of bird-kind weigh around the same as a £1 coin (as opposed to the blue tit which weighs the same as a £2 coin, or the diminutive goldcrest at a mere 20 pence) and they live life at a fast rate. They sing at a fast rate too – putting everything into it with enough effort to actually make the bird tremble, and it’s surprisingly loud for the size of the bird.

They are insectivores – eating spiders, tiny insects and the odd caterpillar, which it finds by poking around in the dry stone walls, crevices and under guttering... and here’s the thing that I find totally amazing.

Outdoors, in sub-zero temperatures, with gale force something winds blowing the snow into all those nooks and crannies, HOW can it find enough food to keep it going? I know that in times of hardship, they will take seeds and/or cheese, but they are by nature invertebrate eaters, and would do themselves harm if they ate too much of the wrong sort of food.

I am starting a new business over the next 12 months, focusing on helping people deal with animal-related phobias, and I have been looking for various spiders, slugs and similar beasts in preparation for this venture... and can I find even ONE spider out there in the winter weather? And yet this tiny Troglodytes troglodytes not only finds enough food to keep itself alive, but builds up enough surplus body weight and condition to be in prime breeding condition in just 10 weeks time!

Is it just me, or is this just fantastic?


Jan Edwards, Head of Animal Care
Farplace Animal Rescue - the no-kill animal sanctuary
Farplace, Sidehead, Westgate, County Durham, DL13 1LE
www.farplace.org.uk

14ft Mammoth tusk

This amazing picture appeared on Usenet today and shows a true relic from prehistory. Chuck Leake writes: "This mammoth tusk was found by my Yupik friend, Johnny (pictured). It washed out of the permafrost during a flood last year. I have bought and sold mammoth tusks in Alaska for over twenty years. At 14 feet long, this is the longest one I have ever purchased."

The fact that they turn up so often, so many thousands of years after their extinction never ceases to amaze me..

GUEST BLOGGER COLIN HIGGINS: Lovely lampreys

One of my favourite guest blogs over the last few weeks has been Colin Higgins from Yorkshire, who - incidentally - was the winner of the compy in last month's `On the Track`.

As I have written elsewhere his article on the burbot awakened various childhood memories for me.

His article on tench did likewise, because it made me recollect a passage on the subject in T.H.White's glorious `The Sword in the Stone` (don't get me started on the execrable Disney version), and his latest article is no exception. Lampreys were one of my favourite fish when I was a child, and I HAVE kept them as pets, so just for you Colin, there will be some more lamprey related high-jinks in the next few days..

There are few animals so closely associated with regal self-harm as the lamprey. The only culinary surfeit I’ve come close to OD’ing on is Black Jack and Fruit Salad chews one Friday night in the late 60s while listening to Desmond Dekker on my friend Wayne’s Dansette. Henry I dug the taste of petromyzontiformes so much they dug him in return sending the dyspeptic Conqueror’s youngest son to meet his maker (I just get a vestigial sugar rush from early reggae).

Apparently the RAF made the current Queen’s coronation pie from lamprey which may not have been in the best possible taste given its latent regicidal tendencies. I couldn’t say, I’ve never fancied them with peas and chip or sushi style because however you look at it lamprey are very weird indeed.

As the most primitive living vertebrates lamprey go back 450 million years and exist on the very edges of taxonomy under the charmingly titled ‘stone sucker’ group. They have a single nostril on top of their head, a row of gill holes where proper fish have polite covers and a toothed, funnel like mouth with which they relieve other fish of their blood. Zoologically they’re not even true fish but occupy the same general space like an evolutionary remnant, an end-of-roll creature from an earlier earth, a forgotten subject in Darwin’s waiting room.

Although jawless the mouth - which vaguely resembles Flukeman from the X-Files but with extra barbs - has prodigious strength and they’ve been known to carry two pound stones while excavating a trench for spawning by the power of vacuum alone. Follow that Mr Dyson.

There are three British species; the sea lamprey, the river lamprey and brook lamprey. All spawn in freshwater and spend their first 5-8 years there as blind, toothless prides - we used to catch these on the way to school in the mistaken belief they were leeches. Only the brook lamprey spends its short life wholly in freshwater and is non-parasitic, the rest live an anadromous existence feasting on the vital juices of their host sea trout, cod, basking shark or whatever.

There are a few landlocked populations in Finland, Russia and Scotland and when CFZ set out to discover if a giant eel was at the root of lake monster legends it passed through my mind whether a sterile lamprey might be the cause, particularly for the horse-headed attitude eye witnesses sometimes describe.

In a fishing context they are mainly used as dead bait for pike, giving off a gory cloud as an added scent attraction. One always imagines them as a sedentary species but I know a chap who caught a large lamprey, cleanly hooked in the mouth while trolling artificial lures at speed so that primitive cartilagous form is no slouch. Although rare, there are instances of lamprey attack on humans while sea bathing, leaving their trademark seal-stamp marking on the hapless swimmer. “No bite marks officer, but it gave me a nasty suck.” They also have a unique immune system with biomechanical defences to detoxify iron - handy for Top Trumps or Pokemon spin-offs - which along with other bio-armoury makes them an exemplary medical research subject.

Nevertheless because of its decline across Europe, the sea lamprey is now given some legal protection. Failing acquisition of a pangolin, a gremlin or Top Cat, a lamprey is top of my list for future pets. Ugly it may be but it’s also slightly scary and rather cool. I’ll call it Norman De’Ath.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: The golden frogs of Bovey Tracey

Once upon a time, at least according to an old Devon folk story, a poor woodsman lived with his family on the outskirts of the village of Bovey Tracey. Their child was suffering from an unspecified illness and was not likely to live much longer, One night in the middle of a severe thunderstorm there was a knock on the door and a mysterious lady entered demanding shelter and food.

Despite their many misfortunes the woodsman and his family welcomed the mysterious lady, gave her milk and food (which they could ill afford) and a seat by the fire. She then blessed the ailing infant who was miraculously cured, and before vanishing (up a road called to this day Mary Street) she said that so that her benefactors would know this was not a dream, not only would the child be forever cured but that the next day the family would discover a new spring full of crystal clear water and bright golden frogs which were said to have populated the area for many years.

Another piece of interesting supportive evidence for this story is that, to this day in what is still known as Mary Street there is a Holy Well! It can be found embedded in the stone wall opposite Bovey Tracey hospital. Could this be the site of the spring created by the old woodsman`s mysterious visitor?

Unfortunately, although there is some evidence to suggest that this was not its original location and that it was repositioned there a century or so ago,m a quick trip to the Westcountry Studies Library will reap some useful rewards.

According to even the most early maps of the area there are a number opf wells and springs in the close vicinity of where the holy well now stands. Some of them are marked with a cross, which would imply that they were of some special spiritual significance.

So, assuming the golden frogs exist(ed) what were/are they? The concept of brightly coloured amphibians inhabiting the English countryside is not as unusual as one might suppose. Several small pink frogswere found in Gloucestershire in the early 1990s and others have been recorded over the years from Sussex and The Cotswolds.

But Golden Frogs?

In February 1994 local and national newspapers were full of the story of Jaffa, a three year old frog discovered in a garden in Truro. Jaffa was, as his name implies, bright orange. The Westcountry TV News carried a story about him which said that he, and a similarly coloured mate had been released in a secret location. Mark Nicholson of the Cornwall Trust for Nature Conservation revealed that far from being an isolated occurrence these oddly coloured amphibians are popping up all over the place. Ranging in colour from bright orange, through yellow to pale cream, these creatures have been reported from all over the westcountry and even from elsewhere in the UK although they appear to be much rarer.

They turn up each year, and in the early spring of 2000 we found one hopping around in the mud by the dustbins outside our front door! It was a fully grown female of a bright mustard colour and almost immediately laid copious amounts of spawn which, unfortunately proved to be infertile. We kept her for several months until she escaped into the wilderness behind our conservatory where we keep some of our animal collection during the summer months. We hope that the coming years will supply us with more specimens that will help us determine what exactly these creatures are.

Although I am as aware as everyone about the damage that man is doing to the planet on which we live, there is a distressing tendency in these politically correct days to blame all anomalies of nature on the ubiquitous `global warming` or some other plague of the modern age. Whilst not wishing for a moment to deny that these threats exist and a very serious towards the future of all living creatures on the planet, it is, I think, counter productive to blame everything on man`s stupidity. Various commentators including Internet news groups have suggested that these brightly coloured batrachians are the result of a damaged environment. Whilst not denying that the environment is certainly damaged, we have proved that these animals have been around for at least five hundred years and we are determined to find out what they actually are!

For the present however, it is fairly clear that the charming medieval legend of the Golden Frogs of Bovey Tracey might not he so far fetched after all.

GUEST BLOGGER CHRISTOPHER BONNETTE: Monsters in Art

Monsters have been around as long as man, probably even longer. From legends, prophecies on cave walls, and to present day, monsters are found in every culture.

I have always been interested in odd and bizarre creatures. Whether it is made up Hollywood monsters or actual cryptids, I find them all fascinating. I believe it was the Ray Harryhausen films Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981) that really got me into mythology. After seeing those movies I bought up all the classic mythology books I could find.

My brother, who is 10 years older than me, would force me to watch scarymovies late at night. Of course it would always lead to nightmares. I occasionally still get night terrors. However, I have built up a tolerance to monsters. I now love them and pursue to make a career illustrating them. I want to update the pictorial history on the creatures of legends.

I try to create the illustration as accurate as possible but still keep them whimsical, stylish, and modern. If the image is not fully accurate to its original description, I will state it as an artistsinterpretation. No one knows exactly how these creatures may have looked. I am dedicated to keeping the tales of the past known so they are notforgotten. I still hold the hope that mankind has a lot left to discover.

I am now at number 38 in a series of 100 paintings that I hope to publish it into a book. After seeing the response of the mythological paintings on the site (http://www.macula.tv/main.htm), I am sure it will go way past 100 and continue for the rest of my life.

To get children to like monsters I have started a series of papercraft to go along with the paintings. Several schools from around the world now know the tale of the Krampus. I have also included tutorials to help them build each creature. Children and adults alike have fun crafting and learning about fantastic creatures.I have also been lucky enough to make new friends due to this project. With the help of Richard Freeman a real cryptozoologist I can get the facts on cryptids as accurate as possible. So stop on by and have funbuilding and learning about things that go bump in the night.

Christopher Bonnette

http://macula.tv/main.htm

COLUMNIST TIM MATTHEWS: Back to the Future

Tim Matthews is one of my best friends, and also - coincidentally - one of the most controversial figures in contemporary forteana. He has been involved with the CFZ for nearly a decade now, raising eyebrows wherever he goes.

Once upon a time, in the 1990s, the X Files was all the rage and various appreciation groups, fans clubs, UFO groups, magazines and similar publications appeared and many of us jumped on the bandwagon.

Against this background, of every man wanting Gillian Anderson, some women preferring a Fox Mulder to their current model and teenagers scanning their heads in the barcode machine at their local supermarket checkout to see if they had an "alien implant", I came across a strange bunch of X-Files rejects on board a ferry to France the day before the famous Eclipse of the sun in 1999.

We arrived at Portsmouth one overcast afternoon, had a questionable meal in a local pub and wondered why, in a place as grim as this, the locals would have been against the practice of Press Ganging! Give them the open seas any day, I suggested!

Moving to the port where the ship was getting ready to sail into the English Channel in the direction of the French coast, I noticed some disquiet amongst a small group of unusual individuals to my left. These included a large gentlemen in a suit surrounded by a coterie of most unusual individuals that included one Richard of Freeman, Graham “Hawkwind” Inglis, a blonde floozie called Maxine and a weirdo called Jester who, it emerged, had spent a lot of time underground recently.

The large man, it turned out, was Jon Downes and I realised that I had seen him two years ago at a Conference in Sheffield mocking an American quack who claimed to be able to remove supposed “alien implants” from “abductees”. He was standing near me as the not very medical expert examined a woman by holding her head to the light in order to “look for implants”. This whole ridiculous procedure made me sick but what made me sicker was that many people watching this believed in the whole thing from the point of view that the medical establishment had clearly failed the subject in question. The woman in question, stuck in a wheelchair and clearly suffering from multiple (and obvious) medical problems looked to this charlatan for some little hope. He offered her nothing but it was an unpleasant spectacle that made a few people really think hard about the real impact of the X Files hysteria...

Downes was heard to remark, “in future we are going to have to do rather better than this” and it occurred to me then and there that his stall, selling books on mystery animals and associated subjects, was the direction things would go in years to come. “This UFO and X Files nonsense will last a few years more,” argued Jon, “and then it’ll be our turn.” And he was right but what the younger generation of would be zoologists, geologists and biologists probably don’t realise was that, back then, mainstream science was seen as an enemy of the truth. Anything using the scientific method was a problem and the weirder and more extreme the belief the more it fitted in with the believers, the publishers and the promoters of the “conspiracy”.

Perhaps, to an extent, this is still the case and it will always be difficult to adopt a 100% scientific approach when the quality of evidence for Paranormal events is so poor or is based upon first-hand accounts.

On board ship I spoke much with Downes and co and we hit it off straight away and he was most interested to learn of my family connections to various legendary underground music journals of the late 1960s and 1970s. We watched Uri Geller, another guest, bending spoons and spent some time talking publishing projects and Jon spoke of his plans for the future. I am happy to report that many of the things Jon envisaged and hoped for have come to pass although the continued call for less science and more intrigue never fails to annoy us. Seeing Cryptozoology as a mainstream scientific effort, whilst having to keep all sorts of interests on board, can never be easy and Jon likes to be at the very centre of things and in many ways he IS the very centre of things. Happily, he is more ready to delegate these days as the lessons we learned during the X Files period was that groups based on a single figure (for example UFO Magazine’s Graham Birdsall) never have a rosy future!

It is fascinating to compare the then - 1999 - with the now. The CFZ has published dozens of books, a regular magazine, appeared on numerous TV and radio shows and is making real progress with an all-new web presence. These are things of which we could only dream ten years ago when the Internet was in its infancy and Jon and I had to drive through the Cheshire countryside on ancient buses and trains to attend meetings!

Whilst many of those involved in the X Files movement have disappeared for good (thankfully), others have moved onto different pastures whether it be the Reptilian charades of David Icke or the cultism of the Raelians. We, however, have embraced the mainstream and are moving more in that direction as the days pass.

And guess what? Mainstreaming WORKS!

I remember Jon and I being invited to address the 2,000 or so Eclipsers on board the ship from the comfort on the Captain’s quarters and Jon making some comment about the sight and feeling of the Eclipse reminding him of HP Lovecraft’s work. He turned around to me and said, “The scenes during the Eclipse make me realise that Cryptozoology is the same thing; you rarely come across it but when you do it’s a magical experience that we can document for science.”

GUEST BLOGGER KARA WADHAM: The Bugfest Blog

Bugfest SW-Carnival of Monsters 21st February 2009 Stanchester School TA19 6UG 10.30am

Today I have found myself with an unexpected day at home because of the snow, so after a snow ball fight, watching Nick and the children (but mostly Nick) build a snow dalek (pictured), I found I had a little time to catch up on Bugfest preparations.

Organising Bugfest is a little like cooking a roast dinner- lots of components to bring together at the same time, which means being very organised, multi-tasking, pre empting the unimaginable and gorging yourself when it's all done ( or is that just me?). I have had to learn the art of how to twist people's arms in all sorts of devious ways. Being a woman, deviousness, as you will know, is not a natually occuring facet of mine, but in the name of Bugfest and the children's hospice we are supporting, I'll do anything (well almost).

We are very fortunate to have a cohort of charity daleks, a clockwork robot, a scarecrow and 'Bugfest' doctors adding to the visitor experience this year. This, in addition to our regular and esteemed traders; Exotic pets magazine, Tarantula Barn, Mendip Monsters, Curtis Lakin, The Phasmid Study Group as well as other new traders, and a well known Sci-fi trader; should prove a great mix of mayhem and monsters. Bugfest are also urging visitors, especially children to join in the fun and come in sci-fi fancy dress or Bug attire.

With only two weeks to go visitors are being urged to buy advance tickets . For Blog readers, there is a special discounted 'hidden' website page which allows you to buy cheaper tickets. ( eg. £10 for family instead of £14). Don't leave it too late. If it's busy on the day, you may not get in!

www.bugfest.co.uk/flyerdiscount.htm

I may be able to multi-task but I am not cooking roast dinners for 100's of disgruntled guests!