TRISTAN SANDERSON-DUCKETT: There's something in the attic!

Are you seeing a pattern developing here: long hair; boyish good looks? And we are not just talking about Jon. We have Max; Dave has grown his hair; and now Tristan, who writes: "Hello, I'm a fifteen-year-old animal and rock freak, that loves being outoors, observing nature! I'm home-educated so I have plenty of time to do stuff that most people wouldn't consider 'education,' even though I've learnt far more from being outdoors and thinking for myself (instead of being cooped up in a classroom, being taught instead of learning). I hope one day to be finding new beasties and conserving known ones so I thought it might be a good idea to blog for the CFZ!" With Jon's wild hair and beard the CFZ is rapidly beginning to resemble a fortean version of the Manson Family. Fleur as 'Squeaky', anyone? Welcome aboard Tristan....


This week, we’re back talking about Wales; a great place; no wonder it left such an impression on me. This time, unlike the blog about the red sparrows (see 14th June), I’m not entirely sure what the beastie was. I’m not even sure if it’s crypto, but it’s worth mentioning, as it might be of interest – but, in fact, I don’t have a clue what it was.

I think it was 2006 or 2005 when I first noticed something was 'living' in the attic (yes, I know this sounds like a children's ghost story, but it did happen). At first I suspected it was a rat or a squirrel so I put some food out to catch a glimpse, or at least find out whether it was carnivore, omnivore, or herbivore. All I found out was it didn't like peanuts (not a squirrel or rat then) but it loved bread.

At first, apart from the food disappearing, the only sign of life was the odd scuttle or shuffle. One night I had a friend staying over and as the weather wasn't the best for camping (plus the 'friend' was quite frankly a wuss when it came to the whole outdoors dark thing), we were sleeping in the living room. The whateveritwas obviously got braver, and started banging around downstairs, almost in the room we were in. Needless to say, I was scared (having a rather more active imagination then, than now) and from then on the beastie stayed braver, one night it even sounded as if it was trying to unlock the door from the attic.

If at this point you think this is fanciful, it does sound so – but it’s not nice having an unknown animal in your house. So if anybody has any idea what this was, please leave a comment; it would be most helpful.

And now to the photos I promised last week. I’ve had no success with the fox, but I’m sure you all know what one looks like! I found a suitable trout to photograph that show the variations, so look closely and you hopefully will see the dark mark on the dorsal fin, plus the zigzag-type dotting. If you don’t, just say, and I'll try to get a better photo. Enjoy....

TRISTAN SANDERSON-DUCKETT: Reynard the fox

Are you seeing a pattern developing here: long hair; boyish good looks? And we are not just talking about Jon. We have Max; Dave has grown his hair; and now Tristan, who writes: "Hello, I'm a fifteen-year-old animal and rock freak, that loves being outoors, observing nature! I'm home-educated so I have plenty of time to do stuff that most people wouldn't consider 'education,' even though I've learnt far more from being outdoors and thinking for myself (instead of being cooped up in a classroom, being taught instead of learning). I hope one day to be finding new beasties and conserving known ones so I thought it might be a good idea to blog for the CFZ!" With Jon's wild hair and beard the CFZ is rapidly beginning to resemble a fortean version of the Manson Family. Fleur as 'Squeaky' anyone? Welcome aboard Tristan....

Hello folks. I'm afraid this isnt going to be a cheerful start to the blog because I shall be talking of a murderer; a rutheless killer. Of course I'm not talking of some axe-murderer wandering around the woods; I'm talking about something much more intelligent: a fox.

This bushy-tailed blighter has recently killed at least half a dozen of our hens, plus our sweet little bantam cockerel. I won't deny I'm more than a little p****d with the ginger chap but thus is nature, and - even though he's destroyed any possibility of making a Victoria sponge (or any egg-based confectionary) out of our own eggs - I am still going to use the situation to my advantage and as long as the farmer doesn't ...well... shoot Mr Foxy in the meantime (yes folks, I'm afraid this will happen at some point), I shall try and get some close-up pics of him (if only my camera was on me the last three times he visited).

Moving on from the murderous vulpine, there are some more interesting (well I think so, anyway) beasties about. It took me many months and many wet wellies (please make sure you dont misread that; we dont need any more pervert jokes about fishermen thank you very much) to catch one but after little luck, I finally netted one of the small trout that live in our stream.

Then, after a while, I took notice of some interesting markings on the fish. Of course trout colouration varies greatly from water to water and is affected by many factors (such as altitude, food and water contaminants) but I thought it would be interesting to note that these fish had a black/ brown mark running down the lower side of the dorsal fin. I also noticed that the orange spots brown trout normally have seem to be scattered, whereas in these ones, the spots were almost on top of the lateral line.

So next week, if all goes well, there will be some photos of Mr Fox, and some piscean piccies of trout...no wet wellies this time.

THE CASE OF THE FURRY TROUT

I have always been fond of this particular image, because although it is obviously a hoax, it is a hoax that has been manufactured with one particular purpose in mind - to make people laugh. Because it is a hoax so unutterably ludicrous that one cannot, for a moment, imagine that anyone would take it seriously.

You would be surprised.

A few years ago I was working as the deputy editor of a tropical fish magazine called Tropical World. The editor was a very nice bloke, but he had health problems, and a weakness for the sauce which eventually killed him, so I ended up running the show for a considerable amount of the time.

One day when the editor was in hospital and I was once again in charge, I received an email from someone attaching this picture. Now, I had only ever seen it before in a wonderful book called Animal Fakes and Frauds by a bloke called Peter Dance, and was completely unprepared for a letter from a bloke saying that he was in the throes of setting up a coldwater fishtank, with some unusual inhabitants, and was looking for a furry trout to complete his collection.

The frightening thing was that this geezer was obviously somewhat of a fish afficianado (a piece of alliteration that sounds better read out than it does writen down). He already had some rather impressive North American coldwater fish (including bullhead catfish and pumpkinseeds, which are both technically illegal to keep) and an expensive filtration system.

So maybe I was once again suffering from the sin of pride through prior knowledge. There are, after all, hairy frogs. Why not furry trout?