Basically, I've been posting here but seemingly to myself. I could just wait and publish a lot of the posts in a new book but the AOP Face Book page has attracted NO ONE and the silence here speaks "volumes".
That's why I've not posted. I'm guessing no real interest.
By the 1700s the British fox was on the verge of extinction and about to
follow the bear and wolf having been hunted for sport for centuries.
The answer was to import thousands of foxes per year for sport. But
foxes kept dying out so jackals were tried. Some were caught, some
escaped. Even wolves and coyote were released for hunting and "country
folk" were very far from "happy" -some even threatening local hunts -one
intending to release a wolf for a hunt- with legal and other
consequences.
The summation of over 40 years research by the noted naturalist and
former UK police forces exotic wildlife consultant reveals the damnable
lie of
"pest control" hunting but also reveals the cruelty the animals were
subject to and how private menageries as well as travelling shows.
Private menageries, or single exotic "pets" as well as travelling shows helped
provide the British and Irish countryside with some incredible events
such as the 1905 "vampiric" sheep killer of Badminton, the mystery
hounds of Cavan and Coyotes of Epping Forest.
The Girt Dog of Ennerdale
is also dealt with in detail -was it a tiger? A Tasmania Thylacine? This
book gives the exact facts and details for the first time.
Up-dated 2013 edition includes
a section on sarcoptic mange in foxes and treatment plus a list of
wildlife sanctuaries and rescue centres in the UK.
Two photos have emerged of "possible" wolves in the German countryside.
I actually learnt about these by checking out the Face Book page of Radio SAW -the German radio station I listen to while working.
The first
of a "wolf" walking toward the photographer near Schartau bei Burg looks like an Alaskan
Malmute to me.
Below -the wolf photo
Here is an Alaskan Malmute -head shape and colouring...?
The second the photo, taken at Krina in Kreis Anhalt-Bitterfeld is not great and could be a manged
fox or, possibly, a Saarloos wolfdog?
The Wolf photo
And a Saarloos Wolfdog
Checking with the UK Wolf
Conservation Trust to see if they agree (they see wolves on a daily
basis)
__________________________________________________________________________
And the response from the UK Wolf Conservation Trust is:
" Hi Terry, The bottom picture is a wolf. The Top picture is quite poor quality & more likely to be a malumute. Thank you for sharing"
So, Krina in Kreis Anhalt-Bitterfeld has a wolf. Just do NOT panic and go hunting it. Leave it alone.
I have never -never- found people calling for "science to take notice" as uncooperative before. I still get asked for the odd advisory from police forces as well as other bodies and my reputation has been built on looking at the evidence impartially -both on wildlife matters and other areas.
Perfect for the British Wild-man group you might think?
But, no. "Could I please use your photograph in my published notes?"
"No. It's my photograph and you can't use it!"
You might wonder why images of snapped tree branches, alleged footprints and so on are not for anyone but the little UK wild-man membership?
Just what the hell is going on -I've given long enough for reports, material and photographs to be submitted for study but nothing. Not one single piece of cooperation.
My conclusions will be part of the next book I am working on and so far it doesn't look good -but until its finished I'm still open to GENUINE accounts.
Above: Not great but between the "V" in those branches is the smaller, grey coloured male sparrowhawk -they see a camera they move fast! ________________________________________________________________ As you will know,if you invite "prey" animals into your garden then the predators follow. Entice deer into your yards or gardens in the right countries then a predator such as a puma, leopard or even wolves/coyotes will follow.
The same applies with birds. I've had a dove,pigeons, sparrows all killed and eaten by hungry sparrow hawks in my garden. In the previous garden I had a kestrel (it moved so fast I assume that's what it was!) that flew in, rounded a corner of the house and flipped up the hair I had at the time tied up in a pony tail (sad -but I realised how bad it looked later). Anyway, I was out cutting back brambles, bent over and something that was so silent pulled up the hair and I turned and just saw a brown blur fly round the other corner.
Puzzling but....
A couple days later I was in the back garden working on the large wildlife pond -same thing. A major "WTF?!" moment. But the next week I was trimming back the bean tree when I caught a glimpse of the bird as it came from another direction and it flipped my hair again. We are talking a fraction of time 1-3 seconds and it was gone.
It was playing. Practicing but it got bored and eventually took to the pigeons again.
Now, the
books all say that the sparrowhawk takes birds while in flight after a
chase. One thing I have noticed in the last ten years or so is that these
sparrowhawks do this, yes, BUT they will also actively go into hedges to try
to catch birds -that includes trying to
go into the heap of branches and twigs where hedgehog sleeps but
dunnocks (hedge sparrows) were nesting.
I've even seen it once pursuing
birds on the ground and up into hedges.
Above: the female (larger and brown coloured) was about 6 feet (1.4m) from me -bloody camera!) _______________________________________________________________________
New behaviour developed or
something ornithologists have seen but not recorded because it was "one
off abherrant behaviour" so not something the species does?
The experts (a-hem) say "Chase and kill in air" and I cannot find one reference in any of my books to this hedge/tree/ground hunting.
up-date:
I
can confirm that the male and female hawks are avian terrorists.
I have
watched their behaviour from my window daily over a couple years and
I've noticed their entering hedges, etc. to try to catch birds.
Above: Yes, she IS looking back at me.
_____________________________________________________________________________
But
this year I have noticed a difference.
Collared doves are known as
"hawk food" -they might chase each other but compared to wild pigeons
they are gentle and hawks take them a lot. Today I watched the dove on
the fence where they always tend to sit -either the pair or the lone
one. It was there a long time and I thought "You need to move or one of
the hawks will get you". Looked down but then up as I thought one of
the doves was chasing the other off....but one then casually arced back
and landed in the tree above where the dove had been.
It was the female
hawk.
I've seen them do this with the doves, pigeons and other birds.
Time and again there was no way that these birds -which move like greased-up-lightning could possibly not make a kill.
They are playing.
Whether this is similar to a leopard -there is very good night time
footage of a leopard in Africa moving right into the centre of a group
of antelope and then scaring them. Not killing but scaring them.
Practicing its skills and having fun?
The hawks seem to be doing the
same thing. They are in fine condition with enough prey in the area, So
this is practice.
So I decided to watch the first episode of this series while working. Then I stopped working to watch it properly.
That good?
That BAD
Bagans and his old pal, Billy, were up to their usual bad acting and "let's not let facts get in the way" methods. If that 'psychic' they had on the programme was not a bad actress then I think it proved my point several times over about psychic fakery.
More of "adult content and situations" special effects. Hey, Zack -how many times can we mention the 'killer' (according to his son who is an ex cop and seems obsessed with writing books about his father's alleged crimes -as an ex cop you'd think he might have heard of hard facts and evidence rather than conviction by trying to sell books) had "incestuous sex" with his daughter -and her daughter seems to be thriving on that notoriety- of which he was not convicted?
Sensationalist bull crap from start to finish. In future it isn't even going to be on in the background.
Bury the damn show -because that is what it is: fantasy entertainment.
Babylonian astronomers calculated the position of Jupiter using geometry 1,400 years before the technique was previously believed to have been developed, according to an expert.
The finding, published in the journal Science, is based on analysis of ancient Babylonian tablets, believed to have been written between 350 and 50 BC.
They depict two intervals from when Jupiter first appears along the
horizon, calculating the planet’s position at 60 and 120 days.
Previously, it was thought that Babylonian astronomers operated
exclusively with arithmetical concepts, but the texts contain
geometrical calculations based on a trapezoid’s area and its “long” and
“short” sides, writes Mathieu Ossendrijver.
Ossendrijver, professor of history of ancient science at the
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, says the ancient astronomers also
computed the time when Jupiter covers half of the 60-day distance by
partitioning the trapezoid into two smaller ones of equal area.
European scholars in Oxford and Paris were previously credited with
developing such calculation in the 14th century, but Ossendrijver
suggests they were far behind their ancient Babylonian counterparts.
“These computations predate the use of similar techniques by medieval European scholars by at least 14 centuries,” he writes.
Here is an Alaskan Malmute -head shape and colouring...?
