Animals

[jayne lee wilson]

I'm never more envious than when I see someone on TV with their arms round a rescued cheetah's neck, or the cheetah's around theirs...
But if there's one imaginary cuddle that gets me nearer to the screen than anything else, it's those GORGEOUS Snow Leopards - those PAWS!

Hooch the Tabby won't know what's hit him in a minute...

[MickyD]

One animal experience of mine some years ago made me realise just how sensitive these creatures are. I was reading in bed one night, a few months after my partner had died. As so often happens with grief, an enormous wave of despair suddenly came out of nowhere and I felt dreadful. My lovely old ginger tom had been curled up fast asleep at my feet, but the uncanny thing was that a few seconds later, he woke up immediately, stretched, then walked right up onto the top of my chest, stretched out his two front legs around my neck in a cuddling gesture and put his head next to mine. I really don't know if he felt that I was in need of loving, but that's just how it seemed.

[Richard Tarleton]

I don't wish to play gooseberry to Anna and Caliban but I too am passionate about owls. The one Anna heard hooting was of course a male Tawny Owl - the female, if there's one around, answers with a "ke-wick".

I've seen rare owls in many parts of Europe - an Eagle owl flying along a dusty mountainside in Andalusia, a Ural owl in primaeval forest in Croatia....this is a rare Tengmalm's owl peeping out of a nestbox hole at 6000 feet in the Pyrenees, near a field study centre. Anyone who has sat at a seafront cafe under a pine tree at night anywhere in the Med may well have heard a Scops owl whistling - they answer back if you can perfect their whistle.

[Mr Pee]

Lovely picture, Richard!

One of the most stunning images of many stunning images in Frozen Planet was the Great Grey Owl:-

[ahinton]

Well, as the Gearbox said to the Clutch: One more grind like this and we'll have to get engaged!!

Is that the "Jeremy Clarkson Soundbite of the Week"?

[ahinton]

Yes, I heard a fox barking outside around midnight, first sight or sound of them since the summer, and felt my mood lift immediately!

You obviously don't keep chickens, then! Nor do I, but here in remotest Herefordistan I have on occasions seen a fox chase a sheep and another do the same to a pig, so I can't say that I'm any more keen on foxes as dairy farming folk in the area are enamoured of badgers; that said, I'm a whole lot less keen on the foxhunting fraternity...

You're referring to an urban fox, I assume.

[Serial_Apologist]

I've always had an extraordinary rapport with cats. Other people are astonished. A former girlfriend suggested that I must have been a cat in my previous incarnation. Crafty creatures - that's one of the things I love about them; never been a "dog man".

We evolved out of the intelligence, and we return to it. I think that's why we relate sympathetically to animals the way we do (and maybe them to us?). Why do people find spiritual refreshment in wilderness places; even the city park? we feel that intelligence in ourselves and spot it in strangers when they smile at us: however briefly, we "find" ourselves again, in a home where we are free to roam (comparatively speaking and subject of course to property rights) which is common to all. Body language is the way we relate to others, and most commonly we pick up on it instantly when sensing danger, as in the case of threatening people, dangerous animals, substances injurious to us, etc, but it is the source of attraction too - unless those responses are desensitised or brutalised out if us - and the attraction is never to one attribute, much as the brainwashing world of image-consciousness would like it to be. We don't realise we are always part of that intelligence as a specialised manifestation of it; language often gets in the way, mistaking the map for the journey. That's my "mystical" take on it, anyway.

[ahinton]

I've always had an extraordinary rapport with cats. Other people are astonished. A former girlfriend suggested that I must have been a cat in my previous incarnation. Crafty creatures - that's one of the things I love about them; never been a "dog man".

"Dogs have masters; cats have servants", as the old cliché has it! I'm with you entirely on this one!

[Bryn]

Have you seen the goats in number 11? Amazing.

(I have half changed the title of this thread now but can't remember how to do the other half)

What, these, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCv4Hlrc5to or this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NsaO...eature=related ?

[Mr Pee]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/8937921/Killer-whales-spotted-off-Cornish-coast.html

[vinteuil]

... sorry, I distance myself from this thread.

I enjoy looking at animals, and seeing what they do. But a lot of this thread seems to me to be sentimental anthropomorphism, not to be encouraged.

The marvellous polar Attenborough series has been tarnished, as far as I'm concerned, by a) lush disney muzak b) a surprising (for David Attenboro') sentimentality in his voice overs - a non-scientific 'personalisation' of the various predicaments encountered by individual penguins - polar bears - seals - etc.

Nope. I don't 'buy in' to cuddly....

[ahinton]

... sorry, I distance myself from this thread.

I enjoy looking at animals, and seeing what they do. But a lot of this thread seems to me to be sentimental anthropomorphism, not to be encouraged.

The marvellous polar Attenborough series has been tarnished, as far as I'm concerned, by a) lush disney muzak b) a surprising (for David Attenboro') sentimentality in his voice overs - a non-scientific 'personalisation' of the various predicaments encountered by individual penguins - polar bears - seals - etc.

Nope. I don't 'buy in' to cuddly....

Nor do I but, although I empathise with you about the musical wallpaper, I don't find DA's scripts particularly sentimental or "personalised".

[salymap]

I feel sorry for urban foxes, some of whom are scurvy and thin. I feel even more sorry for the gutted and dismembered hedgehogs I have had to clear up in the garden. And yes, I know it's just food to the fox,but.........

[Mr Pee]

... sorry, I distance myself from this thread.

I enjoy looking at animals, and seeing what they do. But a lot of this thread seems to me to be sentimental anthropomorphism, not to be encouraged.

The marvellous polar Attenborough series has been tarnished, as far as I'm concerned, by a) lush disney muzak b) a surprising (for David Attenboro') sentimentality in his voice overs - a non-scientific 'personalisation' of the various predicaments encountered by individual penguins - polar bears - seals - etc.

Nope. I don't 'buy in' to cuddly....

I completely agree with your first sentiment, but I disagree about the comments on Frozen Planet.

[Serial_Apologist]

... sorry, I distance myself from this thread.

I enjoy looking at animals, and seeing what they do. But a lot of this thread seems to me to be sentimental anthropomorphism, not to be encouraged.

The marvellous polar Attenborough series has been tarnished, as far as I'm concerned, by a) lush disney muzak b) a surprising (for David Attenboro') sentimentality in his voice overs - a non-scientific 'personalisation' of the various predicaments encountered by individual penguins - polar bears - seals - etc.

Nope. I don't 'buy in' to cuddly....

Anthropomorphism, particularly in its more sentimental manifestations, could be seen as an overcompensation for the way humanity has separated itself out from and elevated itself over the rest of the natural order.