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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Monday, September 25, 2017

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES


What has Corinna's column of Fortean bird news got to do with cryptozoology? 

Well, everything, actually! 

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in.




TODAY'S BIG CAT NEWS

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. 

There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. 

The worldwide mystery cat phenomenon (or group of phenomena, if we are to be more accurate) is not JUST about cryptozoology. At its most basic level it is about the relationship between our species and various species of larger cat. That is why sometimes you will read stories here that appear to have nothing to do with cryptozoology but have everything to do with human/big cat interaction. As committed Forteans, we believe that until we understand the nature of these interactions, we have no hope of understanding the truth that we are seeking.

  • VIDEO: Arizona's wild jaguar 'Sombra' has settled ...
  • NEWSLINK: China’s big cats get space to roam
  • NEWSLINK: Big cat population on rise in Wayanad

  • NEWSLINK: Conservationists elated at increase in B...

  • Hmmmmmmmm


    Bigfoot is the name given to a mythological simian, ape, or hominid-like creature that is said to inhabit forests. Explore sightings of the mythological ...

    THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS REASONABLY OK

    The Gonzo Daily: Monday/Tuesday
     
    I am in a surprisingly good mood today, as opposed to last week when I was feeling like a potential axe murderer. There is/was no particular reason for either. The downside to all this is that I have nothing to rant about. One of the chickens appears to be being bullied by her stronger sistren (yes, that is a word, and far more correct than she-brethren which is what I was going to use).
     
    (To go off at an interesting tangent, both brethren and sistren were used in Middle English (12th to 15th centuries) simply as the plural forms of brother and sister. From about 1600, brothers began to take over from brethren (Shakespeare used both), except when referring to fellow members of a religious community, or a society or profession.)
     
    So Graham is fixing up a section of the chicken coop complex (the part of the bottom aviary were the quail used to be) with a rabbit hutch for the beleagured chicken and the most tatty of the others. I never realised that poultry sociology was so complicated
     
    Forgive me for banging on about our webTV show, but it matters a lot to me, and I would be grateful for an many people as possible to see it, and spread the tidings of it far and wide:
     
     
    But now, here is the news:
     
    HERMAN'S HERMITS IN THE NEWS
    YES feat ARW
    BARBARA DICKSON IN THE NEWS
    THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: AUBURN: Leaving Day
    THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
     
    Gonzo Weekly #253
    THE SENSORIUM SUPERSTARS ISSUE
     
    In which we meet the very legendary Dana Gillespie, Alan goes to the Hapi Festival, Richard presents part one of a short series on Steve Kimock, Greg remembers seeing Gentle Giant back in the day, Graham writes about Hawkwind,and we send Sensorium Girliebox to a desert island!And is there more? You can bet your pondohs there is. And it is all free/buckshee/gratis. There may not be such a thing as a free lunch, but there is a truly free magazine!
     
    Wooooot!
     
    And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Strange Fruit, and Friday Night Progressive. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, C J Stone, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and common planigales who have cooked some stews (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have been culinarily creative, but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
     
    This issue features:
     
    Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, Biggles, Richard Gordon, Gerald Durrell, Yoko Ono, Bruce Springsteen, 2017 Progressive Music Awards, Gorillaz, Damon Albarn, Morrissey, Roger Waters, Bob Dylan, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, John Everett Sandlin Jr., Laudir Soares de Oliveira, Harold "Harry" Dean Stanton, Violet Brown (nee Mosse), Wiarton Willie, Ameer Isah Hassan (aka Lil Ameer), Ben Dorcy, Mary Hopkin, Man, Arthur Brown, Tony Ashton and Jon Lord, Martin Springett, Third Ear Band, Benjamin Britten, Dana Gillespie, Alan Dearling, Hapi Festival, Asylum Seekers, Daniel Wakeford, Big Brother Soul, Mike Pender's Searchers, The Fab Beatles, the Animals and friends, Forever Queen, Limehouse Lizzie, Fleetingwood Mac, From the Jam, Iron Tyger, Big Noise Samba Band, Greg Jarrells, Gentle Giant, Richard Foreman, Steve Kimock, Kev Rowland, Lightning Strikes, Afterbirth, Beastmaker, Ohio Knife, Opeth, Forever Still, Pelander, Midnight Oil, Sensorium Girliebox, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Hawkwind, Nicki Minaj, ABBA, Neil Nixon, Easy Star All Stars
    Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
     
    Issue 252 (Cropredy)
    Issue 251 (Scott Walker)
    Issue 250 (Jamms)
    Issue 249 (Bill Bruford)
    Issue 248 (The Selecter)
    Issue 247 (Don Airey)
    Issue 246 (Steve Hackett)
    Issue 244-5 (Summer Special)
    Issue 243 (Galahad)
    Issue 242 (Steve Miller Band)
    Issue 241 (Carol Hodge and Steve Ignorant)
    Issue 240 (Midsummer Madness)
    Issue 239 (Miss Peach)
    Issue 238 (Hawkwind)
    Issue 237 (Hawkwind)
    Issue 236 (Manchester)
    Issue 235 (Jon Anderson)
    Issue 234 (Al Atkins)
    Issue 233 (Richard Strange)
    Issue 232 (Roy Weard)
    Issue 231 (Allan Holdsworth)
    Issue 230 (Curtis Womack)
    Issue 229 (Larry Wallis)
    Issue 228 (Space Pharoahs)
     
    All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power chaps, we have to share it!
     
    You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
     
    SPECIAL NOTICE: If you, too, want to unleash the power of your inner rock journalist, and want to join a rapidly growing band of likewise minded weirdos please email me at jon@eclipse.co.uk The more the merrier really.
     
    * The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...
     
    * The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk
     
    * We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!
     
    * Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 58 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two half grown kittens, one totally coincidentally named after one of the Manson Family, purely because she squeaks, puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention Archie and the Cats?

    NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Monday/Tuesday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 1492 - The crew of the Pinta, one of Christopher Columbus' ships, mistakenly thought that they had spotted land. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Looking stressed can help keep the peace
  • Frog habitat case pending at U.S. Supreme Court dr...
  • Coffee and bees: New model of climate change effec...
  • Triceratops Skull, Skeleton Discovered Together in...
  • Solar Flares May Explain Mass Whale Stranding
  • Terengganu resort in trouble over viral video of e...


  • AND TO WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK... (Music that may have some relevance to items also on this page, or may just reflect my mood on the day.