"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2010-08-22 17:12:30 +0100, "Christina Websell"
said:

snip

My friend ( who really does know a dog when she sees one even though she
has
judged at Crufts!) would agree with you, Sacha.
She is familiar with the gait of both dogs and cats when running and if
she
said it was a black cat the size of a leopard she saw, then that's what
it
was.
I have no explanation - she never saw it again. I've never had this
experience (fortunately ;-) )
Why is it that just because *we* haven't seen one ourselves, it has to be
ridiculed?

Tina

By those of that frame of mind we'd be ridiculed whether we saw such a
creature ourselves or not. On the whole, farmers deal with life, birth
and death on an almost daily basis and are not frequently given to
hysterical imaginings, either. Several round here have seen big cats, so
this is not a single experience 'imagined' by Ray! Iwent up there with
him the next night, checked the distance and the torch beam and its colour
register, if those are the right words. I tried it on several plants of
different colours and it didn't bleach them out. As he isn't an
unnecessarily imaginative or hysterical type, I was surprised to see how
shaken he looked when he came back to the house and then he explained it
all to me. It was a nasty moment but there hasn't been a repeat. We'll
see if it reappears on a fine and dark night - even in the interests of
wildlife research, I'm not going out at 11 on a wet dark evening. ;-)

Oh, go on! It's unlikely it will be seen again anyway and even if it was it
will run away like last time. Go together and look. I would (if I had
someone to go with) but a cat 2 ft high sitting up I wouldn't go alone.
It's not a cougar but even so..that it is biggish cat and I'd prefer someone
with me if I wanted to try and see it again.
It's not a lynx either.

Tina