You tube video of the tree that a bigcat climbed

The bigcat that climbed the tree/pictures

The bigcat that climbed the tree

A few days ago i changed the You Tube box at the bottom of this page to "tree climbing leopards",the reason being that the instances of bigcats being reported up trees are few and far between however the forensic evidence of them doing so is a lot more commonplace.

I,ll start though with the sighting investigated by Paul last week at Heyshott and he certainly didn,t miss a trick with this one. The situation was this,a large,labrador sized cat was seen up ahead of a lady with her dog on a track in a (mostly)chesnut wood.On realising it had been seen it ran righthanded further into the wood and leapt onto an oak tree trunk,climbing it in 3 bounds,then sat on the northernmost bough for around 2 minutes.The ladys dog acted quite strangely and when Paul met her the next day with it to look at the sighting area noticed the dog acted strangely again when they went into the wood but was fine outside it.

The witness didn,t want to get too close because of her worry for her pet and observed the cat from a distance but could quite clearly make out it,s size in relation to the tree branch.My fellow researcher also noticed small, flakes of bark freshly missing all the way up the trunk consistant with the side that the cat went up it and none the other side.Intrigued,but working the next day but by a strange quirk of fate(the tractor engine gave up the ghost)i managed to get there and found the tree.I know the area well having sightings i,ve investigated going back to "03 and the other similaritys were that the flakes of bark missing had the telltale pinprick holes at the top of them which is consistant with this sort of thing,in fact it is one thing i routinely look for when out and about and before you ask,no,squirrels don,t leave this kind of mark!What is also interesting is that they are usually on oak trees where a squarish flake comes off but on say ash trees a thinner strip,longer at that can sometimes be noticed if at all,there is usually only the pinprick sized hole.Another thing with ash is that i,ve not found them(yet) on completely vertical trunks.

This,although not often reported is more common than we think as how often do we look up at tree canopys when we are out and about?Years ago when i was doing tree surgery i found oak trees gave a treemendous purchase from the bark ,best of the lot and always remember a free climber who went up an oak trunk using only the bark for grip.I would imagine that bigcats would have the same ease of climbing these trees that it wouldn,t get from some others especially say beech and this cat certainly didn,t go up the thinner chesnuts or the spruce.The fact that it went up a tree anyway once again suggests they do all they can to avoid contact with humans or our pets and seeing as the surrounding woodland floor was quite bare of cover i suppose it would be a good choice for it but the question remains is why the hell it didn,t just run off and avoid exposure.This sort of escape might be a good thing in summer when there is full leaf growth but in winter it,s much less desirable.

Personally,i think it made a mistake in judgement and it only gives credence to that it has spent the last 3 months in an area where it could get away with it but not here.As i believe it,s come from the Lavington forestry blocks where it,s spent the winter and moving west to fresher ground,this is not some sort of wild guess as evidence of cats being over that way only surfaces in winter and it,s no coincidence that it,s a no moon time of the month when they do seem to travel more.Actually,the trees over that way would offer more for a tree climbing cat as they are closer together,absent of chesnut but still hold lovely old oak trees............(related article Lavinton Heath and Heyshott dated 5th sept.2010)

Lancing pawprint

2011 is really hotting up on the sightings front but then, as i blogged before in bigcatsinsussex, late jan usually sees an upsurge,4 in 8 days is a little unusual though,the latest today in Lancing.A large black cat,the usual thing,small head,long body,chunky legs and very long tail(typical British bigcat) was seen trotting along a hedgeline at daybreak.I was due to go far east on trailcam duty and verify some photos but that could wait for a cat seen trotting in an arable field on reasonably muddy ground meant the very good chance of finding some pawprints.After several phonecalls to the witness,many thanks for your patience candy floss Carol!i found the exact spot and true to form there was the expected furrow which the plough leaves at the edge of the field and is harder than the surrounding ground and so easier walking and i,ve noticed that cats along with other animals like hares tend to follow these,they are also sunken in the ground and less muddy.Padding without clawmarks was also found and it wasn,t until the chalk-with-flints soil gave way to a brief outcrop of clay-with-flints,noticeable by the brown rather than grey tinge that i found a decent mark.Though the best i found wasn,t complete as the recent fierce cold,easterly wind had dried out the ground on exposed spots such as this it certainly was discernible.Also a bird kill was found which is usual when attending sites and also this sheeps foot which was completely bizarre.What is usual for me is to try and contact any farmers in the area who i might know or not and see if they have any info they would like to input,sometimes they do and sometimes they don,t but if you don,t ask you don,t get is my experience.So,a call to the chap who kept the nearby flock of mixed breed sheep was met with sincerity and he very kindly met me there for a chat.He hadn,t seen sight nor sound of a cat day or night and his sheep had never ever been touched which has left me wondering where the sheeps foot came from,the nearest other flock,he told me,was a couple of miles away to the north.Anyway,it had turned out that we had met before briefly at the South of England show and i took the chance of telling him about our talk night coming up in Lewes and that the acclaimed bigcat author Merrily Harpur,who i had just contacted for the first time, in conjunction with her publisher, Roving Press of Dorset,had been very generous in these hard times to offer one of her books Roaring Dorset for the charity raffle,"oh yes,i know them"he said,for the publisher is married to his relative.It,s a small world!It,s also a very crowded one for after going back to fetch some plaster to take a cast,i returned to find the pawprint to be trashed by a human walking all over it..............

All quiet on the western front

It,s all quiet on the western front,the eastern front,the...There have been no reports of bigcat activity coming in at the moment at all.After the frenetic activity of october and last months finds of 3 deer carcases found in 5 days,the Sussex cats have gone off the radar.I can find no trace of the Horsham cat whatsoever and believe i came very close to it at 1 point,while i was visiting 1 farm on an almost daily basis i believe it had made a kill 2 farms on.Now though it could of made its way to 1 of the huge forestry blocks in it,s range like St.Leonards,as for the others like the Bexhill,Offham,Balcombe and Midhurst cats they are pretty quiet too but i would imagine the recent rise in temperature yesterday and the waxing,night-setting moon(it sets at 22.14 tonight)will help them in their quest for food,this coupled with a steady westerlyish wind(warmer,moist not bad scenting conditions)and they should find hunting a little easier than the have of late.It,s well known in rural circles that animals like rabbits,hares and deer range far and wide on a waxing moon even on to the 3rd quarter and this helps their predators to catch them.However from the last quarter to the new moon ie. the darkest nights they are at their stillest and less likely to fall into their hunters grasp.The reasons for this are mostly to do with the light levels but old fashioned country wisdom also explains other reasons that are best explained by "lunacy",in other words the effect of the moon (gravitational pull)on all living creatures,weather patterns,tides,etc. etc.Back to the cats and a mild night,a steady wind and a decent sized moon and they should have full bellys by the morning.I wish them well.(the picture above shows a full moon above the downs with Firle beacon in the distance)........

Black fur found

Some black fur was found not far from a deer kill site,about 1" long and was collected for testing.It can be seen in the picture along with a little badger fur and some fox.....

Wolstonbury hill pictures

Top shows Newtimber hill with its skirt of woodland...

then the pawprint plus the hare fleck found and bottom picture shows the north side of the hill with Newtimber at the back....

Wolstonbury hill pawprint mystery

I certainly wasn,t going to post any of this.The evidence is so vague,the pawprint picture so poor,the padding could of been anything and the hare fleck,well,i,ll post this following article very speculatively and follow with my own opinion,you will have to just judge for yourselves...It was a misty,murky day yesterday with the hilltops of the downs shrouded in low cloud.The walk up the path with some dense bushes on the right was steep which meant attention was drawn to the feet,there were no other footprints apart from my own but there were pad marks,no whole pawprints to see however the padding had no claw marks attached to them.Something had been active up and down this slope and in the last 24 hours as the rain before this would of washed anything away.As i got higher the ground opened up to a grass field,plenty of rabbits were about and looking down again to the grass some hare fleck was seen.Actually it was a bit more than just fleck and it was quite obvious that a hare had been killed here overnight plus it was dry but i couldn,t find any blood or carcase,it had been quickly killed and just taken away.Nearby,leading up to a fence,again those clawless pad marks.There was a footpath the other side but the ground was very chewed up by horse traffic to find anything there.Plenty of sheep on the hill,they looked quite happy just chewing grass and noone seemed about.This is open access here,National Trust owned but the damp weather that i quite like must of kept people away.Anyway walking back down another path near to where the hare was killed the side was steep away from the mud churned path and i found this partial pawprint measuring 5 cm across,again no claw marks and although the 2 front toes meet in the middle this would be expected as the rest of the animal would be trying to keep out of the mud and so would be on a slant.The lobe however looks to be big which is consistant with cats.5cm width is the same as the Devils Dyke pawprint which is the next hill along after Newtimber which is where Dr.Gerald Legg found something similar a few years earlier.So,the pawprint is what i would expect to come from a Longlegged cat,also if any cat would be capable of catching a hare it would be 1 of these fleet beasts also the near full moon would increase the cats advantage considerably.Of course the hare could of been killed by a fox but i would of expected much more fleck lying around as it would be a hell of a struggle for a fox to kill something only half its size plus the evidence of this happening would be quite near in the bushes to spot and there was nothing.So,what sightingshave there been in the area to support this theory of Llcs being active here?Well as recently as july this year a black cat very slim was seen crossing Clappers lane 2 miles west(source BCIB forum) and the previous september a reddish brown, shape unknown,larger than a fox cat was seen at Edburton(source SBCW) At Small Dole (where i used to live)in 2003 a grey coloured cheetah-like animal was seen coursing rabbits in a field and later presumably the same 1 was crossing the road to go back to the downs(source Bryan Hale)Way back in 2000 over near Ashurst my own sighting of 1 of these beasts again i saw it coursing rabbits and near Burgess Hill in "04 of another similar cat with very long legs and i quote(Bryan Hales records again) also Ditchling plus in 2000,october at Shoreham which is not too far away from Wolstonbury say 5 miles as the cat walks"black,cheetah-like animal"was the description.Altogether that makes alot of activity from collie sized(20"tall)cheetah-like cats in the local area unmatched except perhaps for the Midhurst area and maybe around Robertsbridge, East Sussex ,need i go on?

Offham cat update

All the details are in of the sighting at Plumpton recently,the date was further back than i,d thought,the 1st week in september which is nearly 2 months ago now also the colour described by the 2 witnesses who saw it,grey browny black so not the jet black of our lovely Offham cat.Seeing as most cats described are black any different coloured ones are very noticeable in the records and we have the Bevendean sighting recently describing a black cat with brown mottling,is this the same cat?This is anyones guess but there are so many cats beeing seen (on the move)at the moment that any previous theorys on the year round rigidity of bigcat territorys are very much mistaken,a simple flick through the sightings register shows different coloured cats passing through where other ones have been seen,like the above.We also have a more brown one spotted at Telscombe this year very close to the black one, at times together that took up residence for the late winter months into spring and also the Milland sightings of black and brown cats.What is certain is that i do tend to get a rash of sightings every autumn and this begs the question ,are they on the move more at this time of year leading to them lying up in more exposed places and also moving through areas in the daytime which makes them more visible.The recent sighting at Midhurst common was a cat reported to be grooming itself in the sun and most animals at this time of year make the most of the weakening autumn sunshine to bask in leading them open to observation.The cover hasn,t died back fully yet and with far less people tramping about these factors can be discounted.Another factor that can be thrown out of the window with no further waste of thought is lack of food,there is a massive surplus of prey around at this time of year more than at any other.The rabbit numbers have peaked,the shooting woods are stuffed full of pheasants and the roe fawns are still only about 5 1/2 months old making them easy meat for a bigcat these young deer lack the full strength of the adults and they are far less aware,a point about deer numbers is that there is reckoned to be a bulging population of them at the moment,in some areas every copse and bit of wood holds a number of deer in them.A pity about the poor rabbits,we have a myxy epidemic at the moment,the worst seen for some years and with sick and dying rabbits lying about all over the place anything that eats them like the buzzards are having a field day,such easy meat is there for the taking.So we are back to the most likely causes that is that bigcats are moving around at this time of year to get themselves aquanted with their winter ranges along with young cats which would be on their own now for the first time and are needing to settle themselves in somewhere before the winter sets in good and proper.........

Iping/more

This is an update of the Iping fawn cat saga,virtually all the results are in and the fur has been analysed with no change to my conclusions.First up the 4cm wide pawprint which would of made just shy of a 5cm paw,i contacted David Brinicombe of Keokacats in Devon who is a renowned breeder and authority of Maine Coons,a beautiful,long furred breed of cat known for their size,character,friendlyness and ability to fend for themselves if the occasion wants and asked him for help in guaging the size of the cat that made these prints,he kindly helped.I quote from his email "i grabbed my biggest boy,splayed a paw and it was just short of 50mm wide.Fortunately they are also very even tempered cats.Large Maine coons are as big as any domestic cat gets and they are known for big feet. "So this means that the fawn cat in the video is definitely not the owner of the pawprints,it was an innocent bystander ,incredible coincidence.Secondly,Dr Gerald Legg,keeper of Natural Sciences at Booth Museum,Brighton analysed the fur found at the site and i am very grateful to him for spending so much time on(Bigcat research) what is thought of in a lot of Naturalist circles as a bit of a lost cause due to the elusiveness of these beasts."Not cat-like in any way,more like a rodent" and come to think of it that fur was on the sides of the run not the top,so that piece of evidence is out the window, i must admit i really thought it could of been cat fur even if it came from the tame cat ,i suppose it shows how far short i am in some of the skills needed at this game but it,s all a learning curve we are volunteers after all.After all that we are left with,apart from the sighting from the witness,a paw belonging to a cat of at least 30lb in weight,a longlegged cat?Well possibly,but i also refer to a sighting we have had in from Bepton just down the road in mid sept,the description given was an orangy-brown fox sized cat with a long thin tail and solid looking seen in a garden,yes not in the wild woods i know but it does mean we have 2 eye witness accounts of 2 strange looking cats that could have 5cm wide paws.The fawn colour sticks out though and i think there,s less than 1% of sightings are this colour which makes it all the more remarkable when going through my sightings record i come across simply "early august 1995,Stedham Common (just down the road)fawn coloured cat ,smallish ,as in not a leopard".....

Offham cat resurfaces

A mass of seasonal farmwork over the last fortnight has meant little time for cat stuff however a brief respite today gave the chance of an afternoon foray in search of the Offham cat.Sightings in this block of country have occured on a regular basis over the last 5 years(and way beyond)like Plumpton 3.3.07,Streat 30.9.09,Ditchling december 09,Offham 5.2.10,Plumpton Green 15.2.10,Offham tree scratches,missing foal mystery,foxes killed and eaten late april 10.All this activity has happened here in a month with a r in it,in other words the colder months.Does this piece of ground,mixed farmed intersperced with small decidious woodland blocks connected by thick hedges in the shadow of the Downs,offer a bigcat a winter holding ground?It can be muddy in places but the varying soil drains well mostly,is stocked with plenty of game and the main Lewes to Seaford railway line runs through it offering quick connections to other parts of the county.Having heard of no cat activity here since last spring and feeling intrigued i was off to find out.The usual leafleting carried out and a quick check on a couple of copses revealed little in the way of evidence unless a distinct lack of foxes is.I was last there in august and it was heaving with them,the woodland floor littered with their activitys,nothing now.I moved on a bit west and chewing the fat with a local cattle farmer,together bemoaning the high price and lack of winter fodder,he mentioned a bigcat sighting a fortnight ago by a local landowner.Chunky,black,labrador sized,seen slinking along a hedge line.Bingo!A recce to another place nearby again revealed no foxes whatsover and although there were some signs of deer they were keeping their heads down even in this warm autumn sun,usually i would expect to see them basking a bit especially as it goes down.Admittedly i could find no bigcat evidence as such but a couple of leads like this is all i need,hopefully more information from outside sources will come in,luckyly next week i,m due to drop by a farm in the area giving a good chance to look round so who knows what might turn up?By all accounts so far it looks like the Offham cat is back it being the colde-r months now,being occasionally visible and giving the local fox population a run for its money..

Iping fawn cat mystery solved

I really don,t think we could of been much more thorough in this investigation following up the sighting of a fawn coloured cat or maybe we should of,i will explain.We found the witness to be perfectly genuine,fur was found wrapped round blackberry stem barbs,quite alot in fact,which would suggest high activity of this trail,it was soft,unlike any animal fur i,ve previously found.Also a lot of padding but no clear prints,then came the rain and a hastened visit revealed the 4cm wide one,not quite big enough to be a Llc but definetly big and cat shaped,a wider recce of the area turned up no other on the ground evidence.It was time to call in the artillery,the trailcam,positioned and baited with(don,t laugh)some cat biscuits.The results speak for themselves,left for 4 days pointed at a 17" high barbed wire fence fence clearly shows a 12" odd high massive male tame cat.Looking at the pictures back at the catmobile(my van) this fawn cat could possibly be the fawn cat in the Iping sighting and so a case of mistaken identity ought to be recorded,of course there may be 2 fawn cats 1 of which is far bigger but the chances of that are?Anyhow,time for the bigcat investigation circus to move on,this has been a simply gorgeous place to visit,peaceful countryside unblighted by the massive urban developments further to the east of the county spreading like a rash and so hats off to the 22000 acre Cowdray estate in whose hands some of it has been managed,how they look after it well,so do the other owners like Chithurst monestry.For the cam it,s a new spot,we,ve just had a fresh sighting just in at Steyning and i had promised to count the deer with it on a farm where i sometimes work,which is just up the road.So mystery solved,goodbye to Iping and with a bag full of some of the biggest chesnuts i,ve ever seen,some are the size of conkers,it,s east we go but,hold on a minute there tiger,i,ve overlooked some crucial evidence in my haste to come up with believable answers and that is not the end of the saga by any stretch so that is the subject of the next article......

Iping sighting/My conclusion

For a start, a 4cm wide pawprint would make a cats paw to be about 5cm wide including the skin, etc. and that,s far too big for our cat in the video,big though it is.In fact there was a smaller print on the run as well,found on another visit that certainly seems to fit the bill so far as this cat is concerned.So what animal belongs to our 4cm wide print?That is the mystery that after all this work still hasn,t been solved.Secondly,the witness described a far bigger cat with a question mark tail,not the flat tail of our star in the video,she also described a very slim body shape "like a cheetah"again not the well fed tubby cat,"it had long legs"well,i would describe the cat in the video as having short and stubby legs,cute though it may be."The size of a labrador ",it was noon when the witness saw it,not the tricky,half light of dusk and no matter what the shadows a domestic cat can never be described as a labrador by any stretch of the imagination not forgetting that the witness was no more than 50yards away from the animal and had a very good look at it and saw it move which is very good for size comparison(this is why i like video more)To be honest,i like a nicely tied up investigation concluded to some degree of certainty whether the evidence and/or sighting shows the possibility or not of a bigcat being there but this whole saga really does leave a lot of questions unanswered.My verdict?The video of the tame cat doesn,t prove that the sighting was a case of mistaken identity merely,it displays the fact that,like the badger videoed there,several different types and species of animals will use a trail,including the local domestic cats.It may of been fawn too however there are a lot of big,black cats seen but i,m willing to bet that black domestic cats are one of the most popular to own,i know,i used to have one and he could never have been described as the size of a labrador.The trailcam has already filmed 1 or 2 tame black cats in the vicinity of multiple sightings of a leopard style cat and they could never of been confused so it seems cameras still don,t lie,they just distort the facts.....

Redford recce

It was with dismay that i checked the cam yesterday,the heavy rain of the last few days meant that the local wildlife had kept their heads down resulting in few pictures but it wasn,t this that was disapointing.The videos were misty,lacking detail and i put it down to the almost permanent fog that been around here due to the weather.Anyway,onwards and upwards it was time to move it,the lure of the wild boar and muntjac here was eclipsed by the chance of something even more exotic and after thanking the kind people of Alexandra,s Kitchen,Midhurst,the woods owners and also member Paul for the permission it was off down the road,cam in bag to another spot where i had a brief view of "something that wasn,t a fox".Setting up the cam was more difficult here and the target zone wasn,t the luxurious 50ft plus of the last place but more like 5ft and yet still the pictures were misty.Not happy at all with the setup i checked the lens glass(the trailcam unit itself is contained in a weatherproof unit) and horrified to find condensation,that ghoul of all cameras.The only remedy was to strip the thing down,take the guts out and clean the inside of the lens cover.Problem solved.Hopefully,my laughable attempts at electronic first aid haven,t damaged the precious cam and it still does it,s job but if there was ever a place to put a cam then this is it.The hours of the day were slippping by so it was off to meet Derek,SBCW founder,to have a look at yet another prime cat-holding ground in this area,game is abundant,it,s quiet,plenty of cover,the small fields are surrounded by woods and once again that bigcat country signifying plant bracken grows well,but that,s another story for i wasn,t going to mention the next few sentences but now will.So often we talk to people who have had spurious sightings of something that could well have been a bigcat "it wasn,t a fox or a dog or anything like that but it crossed the track in front of me so quick i couldn,t make out exactly what it was"is broadly typical of what we hear.Without a concrete identification holding fast under scrutiny and occasionally backed up by on the ground evidence such as pawprints,fur,kills etc or even preferably a double sighting and even better multiple ones,they won,t ,at the least ,get recorded and at the most a mental note of "may of been",all are forgotten.How foolish i,ve been.Thinking back some of these "could well of beens"have been in bigcat country and who knows?So back to last week and dusk finds me walking through one of these mixed woods coming out onto a grazing field with rabbits scattering everywhere.The last bit of seeable dusk,a fair while after the last of the plinking blackbirds,in fact when the pipistrelle bats are feeding hard,something ran across the 100 yard stretch of paddock 30 yards in front of me going righthanded.It was light,all one shade of colour(it was too dark to tell colours)moved unlike and had a much thinner tail than the animal it would usually of been,a fox.The dogs were now noses down,tails flagging,stretching on their long tracking leads very buzy and interested in this scent,me?Well,not wishing to sound too Ray Mears,there was an electric feel in the air,the complete opposite of say, watching a relaxed herd of deer lying down in the shade in long grass on a summers day .As i said,i don,t know what it was but it "could well of been...."

Is this a pawprint of a Llc?

This 4cm wide pawprint photo was taken where multiple sightings of Longlegged cats have taken place in the area.The two front toes are staggered,typical of cat prints,and i think this is a print of the smaller back foot as i,ve found them in the past to be around 5cm wide .It may also be a smaller cat than i,ve previously seen evidence of however what is staggering is that last nights heavy rain would of washed all signs of anything away and so this is very fresh,made since midnight,in fact all the signs are that this area sees a lot of cat activity.I know it,s not a big print but we,re not talking leopards here,the size of the cat that made this print is around 2o"tall,weighing about 10 to 14 kilos which makes it only twice the size of a tame cat,typical size descriptions from eye witnesses say about the size of a large fox,but this is still far bigger than any of the domestic breeds from where,i think,they came...

Typical trail of Llc,s

The picture shows the trail going up the bank,they are typically slightly smaller than badgers(in fact there was a badger run 100 yards further up the road)less damage is done to the surrounding vegetation,with less height to it also.I have found in the past that cats will use their own runs if badgers have soiled theirs although foxes will travel along anywhere they choose.There was no badger fur on the barbs, in fact there was no fox fur either.The dogs also gave their "cat mark" to this trail.In 2001/2 i investigated this whole area for longlegged cats and found pawprints to match their size(similar to the Devils Dyke pawprints blogged in june) and many trails of this type littered the banks and hedgerows.Multiple sightings mentioned these cats to such a degree that i used the country here as a blueprint that satisfied their needs and you,ve guessed it,they crop up at other places similar to here like Maplehurst and Dial post to the east,where i saw my own one......

Long-legged cat rears it,s little head

I took the call on wednesday at 12.10,the lady in question was sincere and before her sighting,a sceptic,accurate with the facts she describes "a cheetah-like cat but smaller,labrodor sized,very slim,longlegged with a question mark tail and it was fawn coloured".After the 10 minute call i was on the phone to Paul at Midhurst and hats off to him for within an hour and a half he was there at the site getting a statement from the witness.Now when i hear"like a cheetah,very slim,longlegged"it doesn,t happen often but when it does it screams out to me my old friend the Longlegged cat and this type of bigcat excites me like no other.All plans are off for the next day and after i set the cam up at Redford we make the 3 mile journey along narrow,sunken,ancient cartway roads to Iping.Finding the spot where the lady pointed she had seen the cat the day before,a clear narrow trail down the bank to the road and up the bank to the other side is seen and poking about looking for pawprints and fur,i noticed,no not pawprints but almost better,some fawn coloured fur wrapped around the blackberry stem barbs.There was quite a lot which would suggest this path was well used,taking samples,there was some both sides of the track,it had a peculiar softness and didn,t have the tri-colour of fox fur,in all my years at this game i have never come across any fur this colour or texture.The sample will be tested and photographed and i hope to blog the pictures for open view.The country here is more open than that at Redford,it,s cultivated heathland but rolling with deep valleys and narrow streams,useless for finding pawprints,but the thick,mixed woodland and grass fields hold ample deer and rabbits and,being Sussex.a pheasant shoot wouldn,t be far away.Sightings in the general area also include larger leopard type cats which supports my theory of these types coexisting or at least their territorys overlapping,but with the Longlegged cat favouring more open ground.....

Missing cats of Saltdean

I thought i,d blog about one of the less glamourous but no less important or interesting cases that we get involved in.We really like to get our teeth into finding about bigcats and knowing what not they are doing also goes to adding to the big picture of bigcat behaviour.It,s also part and parcel of this facinating hobby of ours to suss out varying situations.A case in point is the missing cats saga at Saltdean recently(the place gets it,s name from a salt making brinery that was here centuries ago,plus it,s in a dean which is a name for a gap in the downs)We received an email from a lady who was extremely concerned about her beloved pet cat that had gone missing from her home and had not returned,also another had and possibly others ,many cats wander at this time of year like the ones showing up on the trailcam.Notices had gone up and they had searched the area looking in sheds,the usual.Having learned from our website that a bigcat had been sighted at Telscombe a mile along the coast earlier in the year on a number of occasions,worries were that their pets had become food for it.I went to the clifftop suburb as soon as i could in the morning and saw that the houses backed onto the downland behind and huge blocks of maize were now 6ft tall and stretched over the horizon,an important winter fodder crop for cattle and valued by wildlife,they could hide an army let alone anything else.My experience in the past is that,where planted next to houses,pets from there like cats and dogs especially terriers can easily become lost on entering and become disorientated,ending up where they don,t know where and then wandering for miles sometimes never to be seen again.We,d had no bigcat sightings from Saltdean in spite of leaflets posted and asking around although that,s not to say a bigcat has never been there,there is a little scrub for it to hide in and the maize itself would be perfect when not wet but there,s little game to speak of and even at Telscombe at the height of the bigcat activity in late winter and early spring no large scale pet missing or killings had been reported and in my experience bigcats taking dogs or even tame cats is an exteremely rare occurence.So obviously a bigcat NOT being the prime suspect in the missing cat saga seems to have been confirmed when one of the tame cats arrived back home,very thin and wretched looking but none the less alive.It,s safe return and hopefully the others will follow rules out any bigcat involvement but certainly points to the maize blocks and late summer wanderlust helping in their disappearance...

Bigcat growls again

4 or so miles to the west of Lavington heath,still with sand at the feet,lies West Lavington a charming,peaceful hamlet with a lovely pub on the outskirts of Midhurst but separate in it,s own right.Sporadic sightings here in recent times include ones in the village gardens themselves like the growling cat sighting i blogged last month.An earlier sighting of a bigcat that occurred 4 months earlier,again in a cottage garden,a mile down the road where the people were woken at 3 am by the security lights in the garden coming on and their dog acting strangely,whimpering but not barking like it would normally do.They looked out of their bedroom window to see a large,labrodor sized black cat standing by the garden gate,it then looked up at them and growled which is what was described by the other chap last month when he was shutting up his chickens.This was a cat that,when seeing that it has been noticed,growls as a warning perhaps to the person/s.Once is unusual but twice in the same parish a few months apart strongly suggests that it was the same animal that has formed the habit of doing this when confronted so to speak.The descriptions match and further sightings in the area including 2 at Pendean and also the nearby sand quarry now disused and resembling a prehistoric lost world mention a similar cat .Whether the Heyshott cat sighted last winter is the same one is anyones guess but i,m really starting to think it,s a different one from that seen in the Milland area north of Midhurst a lot recently.For a start 2 have been seen there 1 black and 1 sandy but both larger than the West Lavington one, more alsation size,also the country there at Milland is geagraphically different and the timings coincide.The country surrounding West Lavington is thick like Heyshott, very jungle-like and seems to go on forever,again forestry blocks but of different ages and more mixed of different ages and more broadleaf trees intersperced with small fields.It has the old disused Midhurst railway line running through it which is our bigcats old favourite thoroughfare.The place is teeming with prey of all shapes and sizes but i noticed the many deer there were nervous,bordering on the extremely jumpy,while i was there a roe deer actually detached itself from it,s family herd and barked at my presence,maybe there,s something in the springlike water here!I can think of no other place with more to offer a bigcat all year round......

Lavington Heath and Heyshott

This was part of a 3 area investigation over 3 days last week spending 2 nights at a secluded campsite which had itself produced a cluster of sightings a few winters ago.I must say that living on the open downs and coming here the countryside looks simply gorgeous with the post-war planted coniferous forests slowly giving way to patches of original heathland with it,s purple heather,nightjars and hobbys that we don,t get back home.There is sand to walk on here not soil and with the remaining woods underplanted with rhodedendrons it offers near perfect cat habitat.I say near perfect because it seems there are no active cats here at present but there is 4 miles across the forest at West Lavington where the country is more mixed.I have leafleted on signposts,asked around,put the word out,nothing,but Heyshott was the scene of multiple sightings of a labrodor sized cat only last december.I have thought that these dense woods offer warm winter cover away from harsh winter winds but it does seem that bigcats shun these places in the warmer months favouring instead the ancient broadleaved wooded farmland further inland like that are around Midhurst.This mixed habitat offers offers far more of a variety of prey not available in the evergreen woods or heathland which although pretty hold little game.Of course not all bigcats are the same but i,ve found the rule of thumb with bigcat needs are prey and dense lying up cover but and this is a big but,the dense undergrowth in oak and similar woods dies off in winter and so can,t supply the shelter needed.There is little to hide the cats from the animals they hunt and the wind whistles through so the coniferous woods would be a more enticing option in winter.To prove my point the sightings in the area last winter include Heyshott,Tillington and Goodwood with Iping a bit further west these are all areas of dense coniferous forest (Goodwood has the massive Charlton and East Dean forests) and all these areas have produced sightings only rarely in summer.Even Jevington and Friston forest in the east of the county 50 miles away,again warm coniferous woods,historically turn up their sightings in the colder months even when fewer people are about to see them.A pattern here?There certainly is,year on year it,s the same with evidence gathering and sightings from witnesses producing cats in a lot more possible areas in summer and then with the onset of the colder months the old winter holding areas crop up time and time again.What is certain is that there are more options for prey in the wildlife rich broadleaved mixed farmland areas during summer and so bigcats are far more likely to position themselves closer to these food sources which would account for the evidence of them being there.As i say,it,s all change in winter and the cats with warm dense,coniferous forest in their territorys will move into them.Not this simple?Well the herds of fallow and family groups of roe deer do themselves favour these woods far more in winter and evidence of deer carcases found here then also points to bigcats moving in and preying on them.Some of the other bigcats in other parts of the county do not have coniferous woods in their territorys i know,but where they do,they use them,in winter.....