THE NEXT FEW WEEKS ON THE BLOGGO

As anyone who has read the blog or watched OTT in the past few weeks will know, Corinna and I are off to Texas on Thursday.

This is unusual as far as expeditions are concerned, because although it is a bona fide expedition, and one which we hope will produce a formidable amount of data, as well as a jolly book showing us having an intrepid time, we are staying with our dear friends and benefactors Naomi and Richie West, and so will have Internet access while we are there.

So both Corinna and I shall be updating both our blogs daily (at least once). Expect stories, pictures and maybe even some film. The whole programme of the blogs will be compiled by Graham at CFZ base camp here in Devon, and Lizzy who will be at home in Lancashire.

There will be an editorial each day from Liz, and a daily update about life at the CFZ sans J+C by Graham. Oll will continue to run Yesterday's News Today, and I will post various bits and bobs from Texas. So I think that things are gonna go relatively smoothly.

Watch this space (and wait for a shite-storm of cock-ups).

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1933 the movie King Kong opened in the United States of America. Whereas the film’s special effects haven’t aged well, mostly thanks to some very bad reacting to the effects, for the time it was spectacular and inspired the superior Japanese ‘giant monster’ films like Godzilla. Some even contend that certain aspects of the ‘popular culture myth’ that surrounds Bigfoot/BHM can be traced back to King Kong. Another debt society owes King Kong is that without the original skyscraper-based rampaging ape Nintendo would never have been inspired to create Donkey Kong and its hero Mario, and without Mario there would be no Legend of Zelda games and no Pokemon (which inspired a whole new generation of children to show an interest in natural history, cryptozoology, care for the environment and animal rights). It’s quite astounding to think of the knock-on effects one fairly ropey film has had on modern culture.


And now, the news:

Digger wasps protected by antibiotics
Boozy chimp off to rehab
It's raining fish ... no really

For most fortean researchers, witnessing a rain of fish as it happened would be a ‘bream’ come true….


EDITOR'S COMMENT: King Kong 'fairly ropey'? Really, Oliver. Tut tut.

ON THE TRACK - Episode 30

I really cannot believe that we have done 30 of these...




The latest edition of a monthly webTV show from the CFZ and CFZtv, bringing you the latest cryptozoological and monster-hunting news from around the world. This episode brings you:

CFZ in springtime
Repairs and renewals
Graham plays showjumper
Training Biggles
Texas blue dogs
Kay and the banana mystery
Corinna looks at out of place birds
New and Rediscovered: Borneo clouded leopard on film
New and Rediscovered: New spiny Mouse
New and Rediscovered: Australian stingray discovered
New and Rediscovered: New colour changing frog

MAX BLAKE: Humpback whale exhibiting extraordinary dextrous use of pectoral fin

Well, it made us laugh, anyway. I was amazed that the poor bird apparently survived unscathed.

GLEN VAUDREY: Another visit to The Savage World

So far (see yesterday) The Savage World had failed to notice that the extinction of one bird, the great auk, had already happened. However, regarding today’s bird, the passenger pigeon, the author seems to have been more on the ball.

‘The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) is our best know American bird of the pigeon genera, though within the last few years it has so nearly disappeared that it is seldom seen except in the Indian Territory, where one or two large roosts are still visited. When a boy I have seen the pigeons flying overhead in such enormous flocks that the sky would be fairly shut out from view by their bodies for hours at a time. These migrations were very frequent, caused by the very great devastations the birds wrought, requiring almost constant change of place to produce food. It is perfectly within the bounds of reason to say, as did Wilson, that as many as a billion wild pigeons have been seen to pass over a single course in three days, and that the consumption of food by these birds in the same time was equal to seventeen million bushels. Incredible as their numbers were twenty-five years ago, only a bare remnant now remains and within a like period they will probably become extinct. So quickly do they leave their feeding places and so great is their speed of flight that specimens have been shot in the northern New York with crops yet filled with rice taken from the savannas of the far South. As digestion is accomplished in these birds in less than twelve hours, the distance of more than one thousand miles must have been traversed in less than that brief time’

While sightings of wild passenger pigeons crept all the way up to 1930 it is unlikely that any actually managed to hang on that long. Certainly the last captive example, Martha, died on 1 September 1914 at Cincinnati Zoo. As an example of both the numbers of birds involved and the scale of the slaughter it is recorded that in 1878 at a site in Petoskey, Michigan, there was a daily slaughter of 50,000 birds that carried on for nearly five months, perhaps then it is hardly surprising that the author could see that the end was nigh for the passenger pigeon.

DALE DRINNON: The Ugly Mermen

There are several recorded sightings of what are reported to be big ugly mermen in lake lonster lore. One such creature is said to inhabit Thunder Bay in Lake Superior (first reported 1792 and subsequently called a 'Merbeing')

I am attaching an illustration of a Vodyany, in this case a Russian 'Old Man in the Waters' in an illstration from my edition of Larousse Mythology, a drawing made by Ivan Bilbin in 1934, and in direct comparison to a bearded seal in Spitzbergen (Arctic Ocean). The bearded seals can turn up in the oddest places, most notably once recently inland in Florida, but also sometimes in the Baltic sea and even in Japan. In the article in question in Larousse Mythology, the location of Olonets in Karelia is specifically mentioned, although similar reports come from adjoining parts of Russia and nearby Finland.

This is not the only kind of Vodyanoy: in central Europe the name attaches to a sport of aquatic dwarf that wears raggedy clothing and a broad hat, and another version is described as being a large frog or salamander that sometimes looks like a log that moves against the current, and which seems to include the 'Pskov crocodiles' as one of the variants. This would be the giant salamander sort of creature, also known under a variety of other names in the Baltic countries.

But in the case of these Ugly Mermen of Karelia and Finland, I think we are plainly dealing with a type of large seal that has wandered inland. The same sort of creature could also be at the base of 'Merman' reports in the North Sea and especially around Norway. I remember reading in a book called Mysteries of the Sea that an identikit of merman reports was closely similar to a description of a walrus, minus the tusks.

A BIG THANK YOU TO STEVE JONES

A big thank you to our old friend Steve Jones at the Wakefield and West Yorkshire Pagan Meetup who comes to the Weird Weekend every year. His group agree with what we are trying to do, especially our work in instilling a love of the countryside and the world around us into the next generation, and have very kindly donated two hundred quid towards the running costs of the forthcoming Weird Weekend.


Thanks, guys.

I'm a Christian as you well know, and other members of the CFZ Organisational Body are Atheists, Agnostics, Pagans and even a Buddhist, but when it comes to doing positive stuff for the environment, animal welfare, education and science, then we are all singing from the same hymn sheet!

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