Animals of the witching hour
Post categories: Chris Packham
| 11:55 UK time, Friday, 30 October 2009
We all seem to enjoy a bit of unnatural history and now at the witching hour here is a taste of some very un-scientific, if not entirely unsound, brew.
The Bible has the Lord speaking to Moses and informing him that owls are unclean, that they should not be eaten by man. The Babylonians saw them as harbingers of imminent destruction because of their liking for ruins.
The Greeks were thankfully a little more owl-centric and named Athene, their wise warrior goddess, after the owl. In turn the little owl was named after her. Not because she was little, it's the scientific name Athene noctua!
The Romans had them up as witches and their screeches foretold of death. Apparently a whole stack of owls kicked off the night before Caesar's assassination. Arabs once believe that owls represented the souls of unavenged dead and any number of poets have portrayed them as sad, solemn or cursed creatures. Shakespeare's witches added an owlet's wing to their cauldron.
That said, it was believed they also had curative qualities. Owl broth cured whooping cough and eggs ended drunkenness. Sadly not enough clutches are laid these days to put an end to binge drinking!
Bats... Again associates of witches and therefore evil. They're most famed, of course, as blood-sucking vampires in myths from Eastern Europe. What's curious about this is that these myths arose long before the discovery of the real new world vampire bats.
If bats were escaping from the poor PR of the Middle Ages (as cats have, please note) then Bram Stoker's novel Dracula from 1897 put a stake through their reputation. Bats were now sinister things that entangled themselves in the hair of women and children. In 1959 an experiment was conducted which apparently 'proved' that bats could disentangle quite well if previously tangled (presumably against their will). The '50s eh!
Quite what evolutionary, behavioural or ecological advantage could possibly be gained by getting in hair is anyone's guess.
Sadly, I still meet people genuinely frightened of bats. They usually cite bats' fast and unpredictable flight as the reason for their mistrust. Blimey, when I was eight I'd have been the happiest boy in Britain if a flock of noctules had come to my chamber. I'd have been furiously trying to entangle them in my butterfly net (not illegal then, of course).
Badgers too have been blighted with tales of misdeed: a badger crossing your intended path (that's death); a badger call followed by an owl's hoot (double death); a badger breaking into your bedroom spraying machine gun bullets (probable death, but more likely too much cheese before turning in).
Let's face it, the very simple reason all these and many more animals have inspired such a poor reputation is their straightforward nocturnality. Even now we struggle to delve into their private lives, so it's easy to see how they were so unknowable in the past. Fear arises from the unknown. What is surprising is how long such mistrust persists in the modern world. We are funny old things we humans... we can't let go of the lore.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~50~RS~)
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Poor old bats - they never get a break do they!?!
Another animal that seems to get a pretty bad time of it is the magpie. I know people who will bless themselves or make some other odd gesture when they see a single magpie (Following the old rhyme - One for sorrow, two for joy,etc.)! Personally I always thought they were quite nice birds....
Another bird that had superstitions attatched to it was the albatross. Back in the day when hopping on a boat was the only way to travel over seas the albatross was thought to embody the soul of a some dead sailer and ,luckily for the albatross, it was considered very unlucky to kill it!
In 1959 the crew of the "Calpean Star" which had docked at Liverpool with engine trouble, after a voyage from the Antarctic. Their journey had been plagued with misfortune after misfortune and the crew blamed these on a piece of cargo -a poor old albatross destined for a zoo! Consequently the ship suffered major Generator engine failure on the return trip to Antarctica in 1959 but the albatross was no longer on board at this point. It smashed the rudder and one screw on the rocks at South Georgia. It was towed to Montevideo and then as it was leaving AFTER repairs it sank in the river Platte. So there you go if you're on a ship with an albatross and things are going badly - hang on to the albatross - or everything will get worse!
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We have bats flying round our house every night, and they are great to watch. Wish I could get a photo of them, but they are just far too fast to keep up with. If I'm not mistaken the bat connection seems to go back to the middle ages, where they were seen flying round the fires set for the Celtic festival of Samhain, hunting for insects attracted by the light of the fires. Some of this is being discussed on the message boards too.
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I will never understand or apreciate people who are weak-minded enough to let their views and feelings be dictated by myths, folklore, fantasie stories & just pure negative gossip about anything really, not just animals.
But animals are the ones that deserve bad press like this the least & are the most victimised by other peoples' shallow views.
With anything that I find creepy or scary for no reason (ie no bad past experiences, just born with that feeling) I look it up and confront myself until I see the truth, which is beauty & fascination.
One reason why I keep millipedes, because they slightly weirded me out for no reason. I refused to be weirded out by something I don't know so I bought a few & now, I absolutely adore them!
Next up, is a camelback spider!
btw, bats are gorgeous. I'm stil not sure why people are scared of them? but then it's just as silly as people being scared of pidgeons o.0
the only animal you should be scared of is the human. we're far more destructive, evil & unpredictable then any other animal on the planet.
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Bats fly in my back garden on a regular basis and I love them.
However, my girlfriend had an unusual experience with a bat a few months back which managed to find it's way in to her bedroom and it couldn't get out or be persuaded out for a good hour or so. Looking back, I think she now sees the fummy side though not at the time! Is this usual behaviour for bats - i.e. to fly in a house or would this be an immature one?
Nic
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Hello Denice_Stout
Whilst taking your point about the only reasonable fear should be of our fellow human beings I think it a little sad that you should be so dismissive of what to many people are very real and deep seated fears. Totally illogical as they may be. I admire your ability to tackle head on your "wierded out" feelings for millipedes but perhaps a little tolerance for those of us not quite as together as you would not go amiss.
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i love bats we used to have a lot of them when we lived in yorkshire , in summer at dusk they used to come out feeding on the flying insects round the edge of the football field which was freqented by the dog walking freternity, no idea where they roosted during the day though, they were tiny probably pipistrels
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as a snake owner i get all sorts of comments. there is a species that is incredibly demonised. My baby python is completely soppy and greets me when i come near his box and loved to come out and have a cuddle, he'll often fall asleep on me.
the most frightening animals to me are humans and dogs. combine the two and i'm terrified.
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I think its fascinating from a histo-geek perspective that so many animals are still suffering from unfounded reputations they have gained over hundreds of years, through our ancestors trying to make sense of the world around them. You have to bare in mind that in their world witches and their familiars, evil spirits, monsters, ghouls, banchees, incubus and succubus were all very real and terrifying.
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Thank you Chris for a great Halloween programme,especially about bats-I am a huge fan and love to watch them flitting round my garden in North London on summer evenings. It always saddens me that they are misunderstood as they are fascinating and beautiful creatures and I consider it a privilege that they come into my garden!
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Is there any way for us amateur wildlifers to identify bats? I get bats flying around my back garden at dusk, and would love to know what they are. And I saw a bat while walking through a local country park late the other afternoon - it was tiny little thing that just kept flying out from the cover of a tree, then darting back in again. I'd guess it was a pipistrel, but that's only because it's the only small bat I know of!
Also have I missed the item on identifying birds of prey?
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Re bats: On 31 Oct one of my cats caught a bat - after dark. After the cat dropped the bat it(the bat) hid under the settee. When I moved the settee the bat flew round the room a few times, then settled on the floor. I was able to catch it and let it loose into the night sky. Is is common for cats to catch bats? Wouldn't ecolocation prevent the bat from going so close to a cat? It was quite exciting having a halloween experience like this.
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Wow Liz, what a spooky Halloween coincidence! Yeah I'd also imagine that echolocation would warn the bat of a lurking cat . . .just like I'd always presumed it should help bats avoid colliding with people, thus not becoming entangled in their hair?! But maybe I'm just being naive.
Although, have you considered that it may not really have been a bat, but a LBB in it's Halloween fancy dress? Sorry, couldn't resist . . .
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At the school were I teach the children alerted me to a strange looking mound on the playground on Monday morning. Having watched your programme last week I was able to identify it as badger poo. It was pink and full of seeds. The children were fascinated by it and even more so when I said it was badger poo. Our premises manager also reported small holes on our field and thought this might be badgers, probably digging for worms. I know we have badgers in our grounds as I have seen their setts in the woods.
So pleased I watched your programme.
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hello we are lucky to live in the middle of a common whitmoor at worplesdon we have lived here for 42 years last week on your wonderful program you said about badgers poo we many years ago had set very near to us but over the years they dissapeard then we found after your discription off poo we have every night a sample but also foxes have run through are garden but there is a very great difference we are so excited that they are back but are a bit aperhensive about telling rangers as badgers have bad press we are surronded by wild life roe deer owls all kinds of birds grey squirrels etc please could you advise us janet brown
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