On 9/12/07 17:58, in article , "Stewart Robert
Hinsley" wrote:

In message , Sacha
writes
On 9/12/07 17:04, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:57:38 +0000, Sacha
wrote:

On 8/12/07 14:19, in article , "Nick
Maclaren" wrote:


In article ,
Sacha writes:
|
| Nick, will you for heaven's sake let go and just go mad for a minute or
six!
| I'm getting over a rotten cold, I'm stuffed to the eyeballs with
| Paracetathingies and antibiotics and I want to hear some fun stuff.
Tchah.
| IF someone else won the Lottery and bought you whatever you wished,
what
| would you wish?!

Well, I did - by echoing David in Normandy :-)

;-) Okay, I suppose you're allowed that one!

But, to go REALLY over the top, I would like to be able to look
out of my windows and see lynx controlling the deer, rabbits and
other vermin (down, Mike).

On that subject - kind of - we were talking to a wildlife artist friend a
few weeks ago and he told us that even before the well-publicised 'release'
of wild boar into the Devonshire countryside, he'd known of several small
groups (herds,
SOM lonely swineherd, so herd.

I rather like the idea of a 'belligerence of boars', myself - bit like a
murder of crows and a parliament of rooks. ;-)

flocks??) for many years. He's a London man who started his
Devon career as a river warden so he's been close to what goes on on
Dartmoor and its surrounding area for thirty years to my certain knowledge.
He also believes quite certainly - as do many of his acquaintances who have
seen it - that the famous Black Cat is indeed around and about.

The famous Whitby Black Cat turned out to be a black Labrador.

Oh yes, it still could be and in fact, that happened here quite recently,
too. But I think what he and his friends are talking about is a bit too big
for that - and yes, I know Labs can be big, though modern ones rarely are -
and the paw marks are - apparently- wrong.

As far as I can tell, two things are true.

1) There are some larger cats (not necessarily pumas or "big cats")
living wild in the UK. (A puma was live-trapped in Glen Cannich some
years back, and if I recall correctly there have been some road-kills,
and some stock killings with cat bites.)

Yes, I have no problem believing there are such creatures around.

2) Most sightings are not genuine. (I didn't find the classic film of
the Beast of Bodmin convincing; either the hedge was huge, or the cat
wasn't large.)

I think a lot of people would like to be the ones who spot something
extraordinary and imagination does the rest.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'