JON'S JOURNAL: Breeding blackbirds

Since the departure of Helios 7 with Oll last October, the songbird population of the garden seem to be a little more relaxed. There are a pair of thrushes nesting in the yew tree outside my study window, and the first pair of blackbirds (there were three pairs last year) have started doing what comes naturally.

Here, a diligent female blackbird collects moss from the lawn for nesting materials. I think my grandmother (who first laid the lawn) must be rolling in her grave at the thought that there is moss on the lawn, but it is hardly avoidable with the siggy summer s we have had for the past five years.

JON'S JOURNAL: The Garden Game

Spring has definitely sprung, and Graham has been busy in the garden.

First of all, he has been putting our new chainsaw to good use, and preparing some firewood for next winter. It all looks uncharacteristically neat and tidy.

Those of you who have been to the CFZ in the last few years will remember thnat at the 2007 Weird Weekend cocktail party irreparable damage was done to a chunk of the lawn underneath the old spreading beech trees in the middle of the grounds.

We have tried to replant the lawn with differing degrees of success: we tried re-seeding, re turfing, and even translocating chunks of turf from elsewhere in the garden, but nothing worked for more than a few months.

So, we have finally given in to the inevitable, and Graham has created a rather swish new flower bed...

Looking at that picture here I rather think that the handsome fellow on the left has lost some weight. After being on this very stringent diet since the beginning of December I bloody better have!

BIG CAT NEWS: Another one from Scotland, courtesy of Nigel Wright

This afternoon Nigel Wright, an old friend of us all, wrote to me:

Hi Mate!...

I have just got this in, thought you might be very intrested in the desription given of the cat!..I cant regonise what it could be?...here is the local newspaper link, from northg Scotland....

http://www.lochaber-news.co.uk/News/Big-cat-on-the-prowl-in-Corpach-29022012.htm

The animal was described as:

"I haven’t seen it for a while but it’s about the size of a collie and has a big bushy tail and the zig zag stripe patterns I would associate with a wildcat"

Thanks for that Nigel. What do you guys think?

BIG CAT NEWS: More on the Smallthorne Beast

I received another letter from the bloke behind the recent reports of The Beast of Smallthorne. He writes:

"Dr Shuker has got an inventive imagination, he starts off with words like 'Spoofed you again' he seems to be using 'suggestion' here, that is how he gets people to doubt from the very start. Then cunningly invent his own false evidence, he says 'the photohas been darkened and tilted very slightly to the left the Cub's head has been changed', This is pure invention, where is he basing this from? was he looking over my shoulder ? and the comment on the eyes of the Cub, common sense shows that Black Leopards have similar eyes".

No changes have been made to this narrative which is exactly as it was received.

Goodness me. I wonder what will happen next.

BIG CAT NEWS: Up the little wooden hills to Dunstable, and a Cornish Cadaver

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


Is this the beast of Cornwall? Remains of 'big cat' found in pond after ...
Daily Mail
Last year the Environment Agency cleared the pond using electric prods to zap invasive predatory fish like pike in a bid to clear the mystery. Local photographer Paul Williams retrieved the skeleton and brought it to the surface for examination.



Richard Freeman says that these are the remains of a dog, Max (who saw more pictures than Richard) reckons a seal. However, we are waiting for more information and are doing our best to contact the people responsible. The second story of the day, illustrated by the same stock picture of a black panther which is used all the time at the moment, tells the following story:

“I was on my way back from work, and on the Higham Gobion Road, A couple of cars had stopped and I thought that there had been an accident. I got out and saw that everyone was watching this big black animal chasing rabbits around a field, then it crossed the road right in front of us".

Big cat seen near Barton
Luton Today
THE Luton News and its sister paper, The Dunstable Gazette, are being flooded with calls from readers who claim to have seen a big cat on the loose in the Bedfordshire countryside – but we're still waiting for photographic evidence!

HAUNTED SKIES: Times (The) 8.11.65

http://hauntedskies.blogspot.com/2012/02/times-81165.html

http://hauntedskies.blogspot.com/2012/02/times-51065.html

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1618 Kepler discovered the third law of planetary motion (the space observatory in yesterday’s “on this day” was named after him if you’re wondering where you heard him mentioned recently in case that’s bugging you).

And now the news:

Anthropologists’ Work Prompts Republic of Congo to...
Predicting the Spread of Ticks Across Canada
Sloth bear and cubs saved from angry mob
Sawfish snout senses, swipes and stabs
Ant identification boosts blue butterflies
Last of red kites introduced to the Highlands dies...
The buck stops here: Proof that deer and birds liv...
Two hundred ancient woodlands at threat from devel...
River users threatening rare birds
Power plant threat to birds’ beach home
Saving the Kereru, New Zealand’s only native pigeo...
'Britain's biggest fox' killed
Sea Shepherd finds key whaling ship

You can’t stop the motion of the ocean:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovLKUoMqPSg