Day 3 of the CFZ Weird Weekend 2012

Sunday at the Weird Weekend 2012 In Woolfardisworthy, Devon.

By Tania Poole - from the CFZ Australia, now living in the wilds of a Yorkshire valley...

Apparently, during the night, here in Woolfardisworthy, a leopard was heard calling nearby! Jon McGowan, a large cat expert and hunter, heard it at about 5am, while he camped by the local Community Centre. Jon has heard many large cats before, so he should know. Yes, all manner of weird things come to the Weird Weekend, even cryptids like out-of-place leopards.

First of the day was Richard Muirhead’s ‘The Flying Snakes of Namibia’ where he looked into old stories from the 1950s where someone saw a flying snake – or thought they did. Since then and in many areas of this south western part of Africa, people who see lights in the sky at night, don’t say it’s a UFO like we would, but that it’s a flying snake with glowing lights on its head.

Lars Thomas gave us a run down on the cryptids of Denmark, ranging from bugs, beetles, wolves, and chipmunks, to trolls, hominids and lake monsters. Lars not only reads a lot, and travels to see  location of sightings, but he uses the microscope to discover what is out there – and has tested many hairs under a microscope, finding leopards, out-of-place cats, hominids, and even a platypus hair…from New Zealand. The old stories in Denmark of hominids and hairy creatures are found in many old documents from wooden carvings to old manuscripts. He also knows of a colony of Siberian Chipmunks that live in forests in Denmark, but is uncertain how they got there. The questions at the end even involved Trolls, and it was clear to Lars and many others that questions were asked in relation to the ‘Troll Hunter’ movie, released in 2011.

Richard Freeman spoke about the Sumatra expedition of 2011 – so far the largest group to go on an expedition, splitting 3 teams up to cover more ground to try and see the Orang-Pendek. Even our fair Rebecca Lang was mentioned, as she and Mike Williams were two of the explorers. There was no success in seeing the cryptid this time round, like the sighting in 2009, but Richard still has hopes to see something one day and tick this off as ‘found’ for the CFZ.

Lars and Jon teamed up to talk about the nature walk they took people on the grounds of the community centre, and Lars came back with photos of several bugs and flies – including over a dozen types of hover fly.

Ronan Coghlan, the CFZ’s ever hilarious trickster talked about Sinbad the sailor, and the cryptids he had encountered. This re-introduced us to creatures like the Roc, and the ‘Old Man of the Sea’ – from Sumatra and probably like our Orang-Pendek or even the Flores dwarf.

Jon ended the Weird Weekend by remembering those lost to us this year – Jeanett Thomas, the late wife of Lars, and Lionel Beer’s long term partner Joy who passed away this week. And there was acknowledgment of a CFZ birth and a wedding too.

The dinner was held in the hall this year, with a wonderful meal presented to us by the lovely ladies of the community centre, and we all ended the night eating a CFZ cake too. After dinner, a small few of us stayed behind and watched ‘Occasional Monsters’ a British film that, I think, was inspired by Nick Redfern’s book ‘Three Men seeking Monsters.’

Due to the excitement about possibly having a leopard nearby, Max Blake, Jon McGowan, Darren Naish, and Mark North appeared to walk away from the Community Centre equipt with headlights, torches and wet weather gear, into the dark fields of the Devon countryside in search of it. The rest of us (now an even smaller group) listened to Silas Hawkins read out a third story of Richard Freeman’s book ‘Green Unpleasant Land’ – this one a rather creepy one about the Bodmin little people. Richard is an excellent writer of the macabre and I recommend this book, and not just to those interested in forteana, but those who love ghost stories.

This ended the XIIIth Weird Weekend for 2012, and as a representative of the Australian CFZ gang, I was honoured to be there (It certainly helps when you are currently living in Yorkshire). Thanks to Jon and Corinna Downes, and all other members of the CFZ that helped me out this weekend. And thanks to Joe Thomas who taught me how to say Haribo properly! Those of you who have not been to a Weird Weekend, make an effort, DON’T MISS IT!

Day 2 of the CFZ Weird Weekend 2012

Saturday at the Weird Weekend 2012 in Woolfardisworthy.

By Tania Poole - (the only member of CFZ Australia who could make it to North Devon this year.)

While I sleep in a conservatory next to a tank of rare caecilians, the household of Myrtle Cottage, headquarters of the CFZ, was readying itself for the second day of the Weird Weekend.

At the Woolfardisworthy Community Centre where they hold the event, everyone gathered at midday for the next instalment. Jon began with the question ‘What is cryptozoology’ in which he asked the youngsters, (some who are crew or just ‘gophers’) and they could not answer – or were too shy to. Even I asked for the microphone to give 3 categories of it – I was right, except for another category – the study of out of place animals.

Nick Wadham was back with his bugs – dangerous ones (or just creepy looking ones) – consisting of large snails, spiders, tarantulas, centipedes, cockroaches, stick insects and scorpions, even an Argentinian Boa. He got the kids up the front to hold the creatures and described how their victims were killed and eaten.

After some lunch, Max Blake spoke about the Analysis of the Borley Bug – Margaret Wilson, an artist, saw a strange creature one day in the garden of the Borley Rectory (the most haunted house in Britain), describing it, and sensing that it was supernatural, and getting a friend to paint the creatures (right), Max’s talk was to perhaps work out exactly what kind of bug it was, the closest thing it could have been was a dragonfly.

Jon McGowan did a talk about large cats in Britain – focusing on his location in Dorset. Jon is one of those very few people that can prove big cats do haunt the British countryside because he goes out into the wilds three times a week and watches their movements. His findings were amazing, and knowledge of big cat behaviour is brilliant.

Glen Vaudry spoke about Scottish Sea Serpent carcasses, and spoke about many findings that occurred in previous centuries as well as the more recent ones – quite often the carcasses turn out to be rotting basking sharks, complete hoaxs, or made up.

Jan Bondeson, who I also saw talk at the Fortean Times Unconvention in London, in November 2011. He’d spoken then about Talking dogs. This time it was another dog - Greyfriar’s Bobby. Most people know about the small mongrel that apparently mourned his master’s death and sat by the grave in the kirkyard for several years around the 1860s and 70s, but Jan had wanted to find out whether that was true – indeed he had existed – a dog called Bobby did indeed live in the Kirkyard, but it was not known that he mourned by the grave. He was well fed, even attending a restaurant where he got fed, at 1 o’clock after the gun went off daily at the castle, and had many friends in places he used to visit. It may have been romantic story tellers or journalists that made Bobby a loyal dog that never left its master’s grave. He may have not even had a dead master!

After Jan was the annual award giving – people who have been incredibly valuable in the CFZ, a great helper, or a great speaker and explorer get acknowledged by being given a Golden Baboon award, and certificate. It’s typical tongue in cheek CFZ humour and honour.

The night ended with a documentary called ‘Heads!’ about the Hexham Heads and other mystery stone heads of North England. It must have gone for close to 2 hours. Some more raffle prizes were handed out, and then Silas Hawkins read out another ‘Bedtime story’ from Richard Freeman’s book ‘Green Unpleasant Land.’ It was my favourite story – Drakes Briar – which I found out was everyone else’s favourite too. Including Richard Freeman.

The Saturday Weird Weekend of 2012 ended at midnight, yet most people went straight to the bar. Another successful day!

First day of the CFZ Weird Weekend...

Friday at the Weird Weekend 2012 in Woolfardisworthy

by Tania Poole - (the only member of CFZ Australia who could make it to North Devon this year.)

I arrived late on Wed night and slept in the lounge, promising to make cheese omelettes in the morning, which I did. The Thursday night cocktail party was a great success, even though the wind and the rain tried to spoil the fun – all those who attended gathered under the marquee in Jon’s backyard, While Matt Osbourne and sometimes Max Blake mixed the margaritas nowhere near like Tom Cruise in ‘Cocktail.’  

While the weekend appeared to hold the promise of rain, we began the talks at 7pm by watching a video done by Jon, where he told a story about a sheep, a chupacabra and an alien coming to Woolsery for the Weird Weekend, with a song that he sung himself. It was typical Jon style music and video.

Richard Freeman began a talk about  ‘20 cryptids you’ve never heard of’ due to a cancelled talk, and half way through his list, was told he had 5 minutes to go. There certainly were cryptids I’ve never heard of, so the talk worked for me.

After a dinner break, we went back into the Hall to watch Paul Screeton ‘s ‘The Quest for the Hexham Heads,’ which I enjoyed because he went into detail about a few of the particular incidents that surrounded the heads. He even had two heads there – a clay one made in art class by Colin Robson, one of the boys who found original two the heads – he had made it in art class a couple of months before he moved to the house where he and his brother found the heads – the irony of this was added to the mystery. The second head was a carved one from concrete by the man who claimed to make the heads originally. Screeton had been given these heads back in the 70’s when he researched this strange incident. He even went into detail about the strange cryptid sightings that occurred to the neighbours (the half-man, half-sheep animal in the bedroom) and the Anne Ross Werewolf that was seen in her house more than once.

Screeton’s book ‘Hexham Heads’ has also been published by CFZ press and tonight was the book launch of it, so Screeton signed a few copies and showed off the two heads he had.

The final talk of the night was Richard Thorn’s ‘The Hunt for the Pink-headed Duck.’ Thorn has been to Burma 3 times looking for this duck, apparently became extinct in 1935. His third trip was only taken this year, and the successful part of the trip was when his two tour guides took him into the wilds of Burma where all the lakes were, and they met many locals who recognised the duck and had seen it only a few days ago. Thorn felt very close to the possibility of seeing it, but he had no success on this particular trip. He does know where to begin to look again, but due to the restrictions and laws of Burma at the moment, it might be hard to get into certain areas. You need a permit for a lot of things these days. Everyone enjoyed his talk immensely, and we all wished him the best with full support and encouragement.

The raffle later gave away about a 15 prizes – I won a lenticular puzzle and a zany colouring book. Great start to the Weird Weekend!

Can Tiger poo solve our feral deer problem?

This page contains material from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Sumatran_Tiger_Berlin_Tierpark.jpg

Could Tiger poo help eradicate Australia's feral deer population?

University of Queensland scientists have spent the past eight years researching and developing a repellent product using tiger droppings collected from big cats at a Gold Coast theme park.

Scientist Peter Murray said deer innately recognised the tiger as a natural predator and the scent of its droppings scared them off. "We know there is an evolutionary relationship between the animals ... and there's a signal in the faeces the animal recognises as a predator," he said.

Eighteen deer (Family cervidae) species were introduced into Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly by acclimatisation societies. The majority of these animals perished. However, six of the liberated species - chital, red deer, rusa deer, fallow deer, hog deer and sambar - survived and went on to form viable wild populations.

In 1980, it was estimated that Australia had about 50,000 wild deer in 20 populations, mainly in the eastern states. But with the emergence of deer farming, this situation began to change. Escapes from deer farms and translocations of deer since the 1980s have seen the number of wild deer in Australia increase to about 200,000 in some 218 populations.

TALES FROM THE ANTIPODES

Tania Poole -Central Victoria

Here, I interview Peter and Pam, a couple I know through some friends. Ironically, Josie Harris who I interviewed on my last ‘Tales from the Antipodes’ (see posting on 24^th May 2010) is connected with this one – Peter is Josie’s boss at Ballarat Secondary College and Josie told me what Peter and Pam had seen. I spoke to Peter and Pam back in March, and heard their story about the possible sighting of a Thylacine. Peter is a very intelligent, sensible man, who is rather a sceptic, so I can’t help but understand his curiosity of this sighting – as far as I know he did not report it, probably because he did not think it credible enough.

Interview with Peter and Pam Waugh

Tania: So where was this?

Peter: This was on the West side of the Grampians, so that’s the dry side, where the Grampians slopes down. The East side has the more lush steep cliffs. It was probably 1981. It was the end of summer, February, March, that time of year. It was late afternoon – not dark.

Pam: It was not yet dusk

P: It was still light. Because it was summer, it was maybe 7pm. We’d been camping all weekend and were heading back to Ballarat.

T: Were you heading South?

P: No, We would have been heading north, up Red Rock Road to pick up the main road that goes from Zumsteins to Hall's Gap to Ballarat. It was a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, not one of the main Grampian roads.

Pa: I don’t remember it being heavy with trees. It was scrub.

P: Yes, it was very open, the scrub wasn’t thick. Scattered gum tress, She-oaks, boulders here and there, like the You Yangs Ranges.

T: Not a tall or dense forest?

P: No. The left was heading into farmland. We were heading north on this road, and then we saw this movement to my right, to the East. We saw this animal come running down across the grass, it wasn’t hidden by trees, it was well ahead of us, we were driving 80Kms an hour. And then it crossed the road in front of us. It was not very distracted by us, but maybe the car had flushed it out?

Pa: We were not that close to it, how far?

P: 100 metres

T: Ahead of you?

P: Close enough to get a look at it

T: So you recognised it?

Pa: No, we didn’t know what it was.

P: We looked at each other coz we thought, the way it ran; it did not run like a dog.

Pa: It did not run like a fox, it did not run like anything we’d seen. It was really different. It was quite large, it wasn’t small.

P: It was grey-ish. It would have been 2.5 - 3 feet long, big head, tail, dog shaped, but it did not run like a dog and that was what really attracted our attention.

Pa: First of all, I thought it was a strange pony, because it was that sort of galloping, very fluid motion, it wasn’t trotting.

P: It was loping.

T: Was it a Tiger? I mean, a Thylacine, or a Big Cat?

P: No, it wasn’t a cat. It was grey in colour.

T: Did it have stripes?

P: Couldn’t see them from where we were

T: Didn’t have a long tail like a cat?

Pa: No, not like a cat.

T: Stiff straight tail, stuck out the back?

P: Yeah

Pa: Well, it was hard to tell

P: The way it was running

Pa: Because of what we remember from later, and what you imagine.

P: I stopped the car, and we watched it run off down through the scrub and probably kept it in sight for 2 to 3 minutes as it just disappeared. From what I’ve seen of pictures of tigers, I would be 99% sure that that’s what we saw. And that’s with me being totally and utterly sceptical of there being any surviving Thylacines anywhere. I haven’t been able to find anything else that would have matched with what I saw. So the rationalist in me says it couldn’t have been a Thylacine, but…

Pa: But we don’t know what it was

P: Totally inexplicable. It’s a very remote part of the Grampians. It’s on a road where you might see only 2 or 3 cars on one day. It was late afternoon, just when the kangaroos were starting to come out.

Pa: But we said ‘What was that?’

P: We thought at the time ‘We’ve just seen a Thylacine.’ Had the big head. I can’t remember now in detail the way it ran, loping would be the best description.

T: But it was still something you’d never seen before, the way it ran, and not since.

P: No, not since. And I’ve never seen a Thylacine run. If I did I could compare it.

Pa: We’ve been all over Australia on all sorts of remote roads and it wasn’t something you’d ordinarily come across on an outback road. It was very pale sand coloured.

P: I saw it a grey sand colour. But it wasn’t a cat, and we saw it for such a long time.

T: Did it run very fast?

P & Pa: Yes

T: But you saw it for a few minutes?

P: We saw it coming down the hill and thought, ‘Good God what is that?’

Pa: It came down at an angle, diagonally down the slope. We stopped to watch it.

T: So obviously it was so strange, it made you stop to watch it, and you thought of a Thylacine straight away.

P: Yeah. Had it been clearly a recognisable dog, I would not even have remembered it or be telling you this now.

Pa: Another story we’ve heard was our friend Ian Smith, who has passed on since. He was VERY positive he frightened one (Thylacine) out of his chicken shed in Mt Clear (Ballarat). He saw it clearly.

P: In the early 70’s.

Pa: No, much earlier. The 50’s, I think.

T: Wow! Mt Clear would not have really been much of a suburb of Ballarat then like it is now.

Pa: True. He was positive he saw one.

T: Thanks for your story!