Posts tagged "England"

Would you wait in line behind hundreds of people and pay $8 to catch a glimpse of a rare turtledove? From inside an opportunistic ornithologist's kitchen, no less? If so, you are officially an avid bird-watcher.

When longtime bird enthusiast Steve Akers spotted an extremely rare Oriental turtledove in his backyard in Oxfordshire, he couldn't believe his binoculars. The dove, native to Japan, Russia and Southeast Asia, has been spotted only twice in the United Kingdom, according to Sky News.

Realizing that he was witnessing history in the making, Akers contacted the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which reportedly confirmed the identity of his extraordinary visitor -- Streptopelia orientalis.

"It is brilliant to see this beautiful and very famous bird -- especially in my own back garden," Akers told Sky News. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and for it to happen here is very overwhelming."

News of Akers' unusual guest traveled quickly on the Internet, and the ornithologist decided that he should share the opportunity with fellow appreciators. That's when he announced that, for a modest £5 ($8) entry fee, bird-watchers could bring their binoculars into his observatory/kitchen. A reported 500 showed up.

For nine years, Russell Burt, the "owl man" of Plympton, Devon, U.K., has gone with his winged friends for leisurely walks through town, entertaining guests at village festivals, and generally sharing the joy of owl-human interaction right out in public. But not anymore.

According to the (U.K.) Daily Mail, a "member of the public" recently reported the Owl Man to the police for animal cruelty, "complaining that owls are nocturnal creatures and should be sleeping during the day, not parading on the streets of Plympton." Apparently, that's all it took for city officials to shut down Russell's activities for good.

Despite his owls' excellent manners and squeaky-clean criminal record, the town's animal-control officials informed Russell that he was no longer allowed to take his owls out of the house. "They told me that it was a danger to the public on a public highway and dangerous to the cars," Russell told the Daily Mail.

"In the wild, owls live a nocturnal lifestyle. We are concerned about welfare issues around exposing them to loud, hectic environments," one council member tells the Daily Express. "There are also safety issues for the public around a large, spooked bird of prey running amok on a highway," she adds.

Altogether, Russell owns seven owls: a Bengal eagle owl named Ben, a spotted eagle owl named Spot, a tawny owl named Mika, an African Scops named Scoppy, and three barn owls, named Misty, Chas and Scuff.

On the bright side for Burt and his birds, he will reportedly still be allowed to take his owls to schools and nursing homes to teach and entertain.

What do you think Paw Nation? Should the Owl Man be allowed to wander town with his birds or is it animal cruelty to keep the owls awake during the day?

Name: Devon Rex

Appearance: The Devon rex is a strange looking cat that, like all rexes, has a genetic mutation affecting its hair. The result is a cat with short, soft, curly hair that rests in waves across its body. According to the Rex Cat Club, the breed's whiskers are curled as well, and can often be so short and curled that they seem to not be there at all. In fact, because of the diversity among Devons in terms of coat length, some Devons actually don't have whiskers, and others are almost completely bald. The Devon has large ears, large eyes, a tiny, wedge-shaped skull, and an upturned nose. They have long, slender legs that stand high at the hip, and in general are lanky, medium-sized cats, weighing six to nine pounds,

History: According Rex-N-FX, the first Devon rex, Kirlee, was born in 1959 in Devon, England after a genetic mutation. The mother was non-pedigree, and the father is supposed to be a curly-haired stray cat that lived in the town. After the owner wrote about Kirlee to a newspaper, he was suddenly the center of attention. At first it was thought that Kirlee's strange mutation was the same as the mutation for the Cornish rex, which had appeared about nine years before, but after Kirlee was bred to a Cornish rex and fathered only normal, non-rex cats, it became clear the mutation was different. However, because of the lack of other Devon rex cats, the breed had to be grown from some of the curlier-haired offspring of Kirlee's unions with Cornish rexes, and so the modern Devon rex is very closely related to the Cornish rex.

We've heard of firefighters saving cats stuck in trees, but this is a whole other bull, er, ball of wax!

Firefighters in the U.K. rescued a pet bull from a pond in Essex last week, according to the BBC. No word on why in the world the 20-year-old bull fell into the pond, but it could not stand up after four fire crews freed it with rescue equipment, so they propped it up with bales of hay. The sickly animal was taken to a shelter overnight and examined by a vet.

Watch the amazing rescue video on the BBC.

Last summer, we reported the story of Casper, a 12-year-old cat from Plymouth, England who bizarrely but charmingly lined up every morning at 10:55 to take the same 11-mile round trip on the No. 3 bus. Now we are saddened to learn that Casper has died, struck and killed by a car, according to the (U.K.) Daily Mail.

Casper's owner, Susan Finden, told the Daily Mail that the driver who hit Casper did not stop after running over the cat. "Casper died from his injuries," Finden said.

Casper was, in fact, crossing the street to catch his usual No. 3 bus when he was struck by the car that killed him. "Casper was quite quick for his age but I was trying to stop him from riding the bus so much," Finden told the Daily Mail. "He had no road sense whatsoever."

Finden posted a sign at Casper's bus stop to let commuters know that they'd no longer be enjoying the company of the cat of whom they'd grown so fond. "He will be greatly missed," Finden said. "Thank you to all those who befriended him."

Our canine friends in Europe need to promise to start being more careful around cliffs!

According to BBC News, a 3-year-old pooch named Scrappy from Blackpool, Lancashire was having a stroll with his owners, who were vacationing at Moelfre on Anglesey in Wales, when he got too close to the edge of a cliff and tumbled over. He fell 40 feet where -- amazingly -- he landed on a ledge instead of in the sea 20 feet further below.

Scrappy's owners quickly called in the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which dispatched a lifeboat to the cliff face where Scrappy was stranded. According to the RNLI's news release, volunteer Martin Jones scaled the 20 feet up the cliff to find the patiently waiting pup. After gaining Scrappy's trust and finding no injuries, Jones rappelled back down to the lifeboat with Scrappy and reunited him with his thankful owners. According to the RNLI, the aptly-named dog was "none the worse for his ordeal."

But the story doesn't quite end there.

Yesterday, the RNLI in Moelfre was called into action once again. The BBC reports that two people in an inflatable boat were spotted drifting out to sea, swept away by strong winds. The RNLI launched a lifeboat out to rescue the drifting pair and -- if you haven't already guessed where this is going -- the stranded couple was the same pair whose dog the RNLI had just rescued from a cliff three days earlier! The couple was rescued from their boat unharmed, reports the RNLI news release.

In any event, at least Scrappy and his owners will never have trouble coming up with an answer for the question, "What's the worst vacation you've ever had?" We hope they send the lifeboat crew a thank-you note.

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It's not easy being bald -- unless you're Ralph, a penguin who keeps his bare skin under wraps with a custom-fit wetsuit.

Every summer penguins molt, gradually shedding old feathers as a shiny new set comes in, People Pets reports. But for reasons unknown, Ralph's feathers all fall out at once, leaving him living in the buff at his Marwell Wildlife Center home in Winchester, England. Marwell animal information officer, Bill Hall, tells Paw Nation that the 10-year-old Humboldt penguin's skin is left unprotected and uninsulated, vulnerable to cold and sunburn. "It sounds silly that penguins could get a chill, but they may," he says.

Ralph has lived at Marwell for the last 3 years, and every year, he's dropped his feathers all at once. (Hall is trying to find out whether he did so at his last home in Germany, but hasn't been able to get to the bottom of it yet.) The past two years, zookeepers kept Ralph inside for a few weeks until his protective feathers grew in, but this year, that solution wouldn't do.

"This year he mated with a young lady called Coral," Hall told Paw Nation. "They have two chicks which they're rearing. We didn't want to remove Ralph from his parental responsibility."

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Like a good neighbor, Hugo was there.

The BBC News reports that at two in the morning on August 1, faulty electrical wiring sparked a blaze that caused thick smoke to fill Andrew Williams' house in the English town of Bracknell, about 33 miles west of London. The smoke detector had been moved to another part of the house during renovations, so Williams kept snoozing. That is, until he felt an odd sensation.

"I was woken up with Hugo sitting on top of me clawing at my face," Williams told BBC News of being saved by his neighbor's cat. "He was trying to wake me up."

Hugo, a large black and white cat with a gray smudge down his nose, had apparently let himself in through a cat flap that he and his brother Harvey often used to visit Williams and his family, including his wife and two children. (Luckily, they were away when the incident happened, reports BBC News.)

Williams leaped out of bed and called the fire department, who arrived and treated him for smoke inhalation. "I'm just so thankful to that little fella," the engineer told BBC News. "The fire chief said that I had better buy the cat a big piece of fish because he saved my life."

Check out this video of a very grateful Williams and Hugo. We think Hugo should team up with Smokey the Bear!

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Pets in the UK sure like their public transportation!

First there was Casper, the cat who commutes daily on the bus. Now there's Jarvis, a lost Jack Russell terrier from England who boarded a passenger ferry to get back home.

Jarvis got lost after taking off after a rabbit while walking in a park near Plymouth Sound, reports the Daily Telegraph. His owner, Vivienne Oxley, looked for her pooch for an hour, to no avail.

Luckily, Jarvis knew exactly how to get home. He strolled a quarter mile to a passenger ferry and boarded the boat that took him across the Sound. The park warden, who'd been alerted to the dog's disappearance, phoned Oxley to let her know Jarvis had been spotted on the ferry.

Before Oxley could get to the docks to search for him, her phone rang again. This time, it was her husband calling to tell her Jarvis had made it home, with tail a-wagging. The dog had walked another half-mile from the ferry, crossed three main roads, and returned to his house no worse for wear.

Oxley told the Telegraph that she had taken six-year-old Jarvis on the same route several times and obviously, he was paying attention! "I just couldn't believe it. I was so relieved. When I got home he was just sat in the window as if nothing had happened!" said Oxley.

So what's next for British pets? Planes? Trains? The tube? We're eagerly awaiting the next meandering-pet tale from the other side of the pond.

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Everyone can appreciate the conveniences of public transportation -- even a cat.

Susan Finden wasn't sure where her free-spirited kitty would disappear to every day until the local bus drivers in Plymouth, England revealed to her that Casper has been a regular on the No. 3 bus for the last four years! You read that right. Each morning, the Sun reports, Casper lines up with the paying passengers to await the 10:55 morning service. He takes a seat in the back and enjoys the 11-mile, round-trip route before hopping off to return home. The drivers watch out for the wandering feline and make sure he gets off at the right stop.

A spokesman for the bus company says they're happy to let the 12-year-old cat ride for free. After all, he said, "In cat years he's an OAP [Old Age Pensioner] so he'd get a free bus pass anyway."

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