A big cat sighting from Mellis

Mellis, on the edge of Suffolk not far from Diss, is famous for having the biggest unfenced common in England, with rare orchids growing on it. It's not to be confused with another Suffolk village, Mells, which is on the edge of Halesworth by the Halesworth golf course. Somebody in Suffolk Highways Department did apparently confuse Mellis with Mells once. There was said to be a sign pointing to "Mellis" which was in fact pointing to nearby Mells, with the "I" crossed out in marker pen by a helpful local resident (allegedly).

I recently met a man who had relatives in Mellis, who told me of a big cat sighting he had there back in 2012. I hear more and more historical reports of big cats seen in Suffolk from that year, it seems as if there was a 2012 big cat wave in the county that no one noticed at the time.
My witness had just got up and was in his garden, looking over nearby fields - he thinks it was probably wheat, still growing as it was early summer. It must have been around 7am.

Suddenly, he saw in the field a black big cat. He described it as like a "muscular" domestic cat, with the same proportions and the same pointed ears, only HUGE. It was so huge that it was carrying a hare in its mouth - not a rabbit, a hare. I've seen a hare up close to my own domestic cats when they were out walking near my house, and the hare (an adult male, I think) was bigger than my small tortoiseshell female cat. Dog owners who have dogs who chase rabbits and hares (despite their efforts to stop them) tell me that in order to accommodate a hare in its mouth, a big cat would have to be "spaniel-sized" at the very least.

Our massive big black domestic cat had long teeth and "eyes like the Devil", with which he looked at our witness. He was glad he only got a look at him for "seconds", he told me, so disturbed was he by what he saw. After giving him a casual glance, the big cat sauntered off and disappeared among the crops.

Some big cat investigators believe that Britain's big cats aren't escaped black leopards or pumas or lynxes and their descendants after all, but really huge feral cats who've somehow gone gigantic. Recent camera trap footage of Scottish wildcats picked up a wildcat that was almost four feet long, so it is possible.

According to the Big Cats in Britain Yearbook 2007, at around 8.30 am on 11 August of that year, a witness driving through Mellis Suffolk, driving along Main Street to join the A143 at Wortham, saw a "large black cat, long and wiry," in field, for 30 seconds before it "crouched down and slunk off into the undergrowth.

Mystery Animals of the British Isles: Suffolk update - new accounts of sightings, maps

Mystery Animals of Suffolk should be out soon - I'm currently grappling with pdf pre-sets for print and the pagination. Here's on the last illustrations I've done for it, a map of sightings of "lynx-like cats" in Suffolk.

I've heard testimony from several people recently who've seen big cats in Suffolk, regrettably in most cases these won't make it into the book, it's just not possible this late in the day to squeeze in additions. A taxi driver recalled seeing a black leopard in Wrentham about ten years ago (there have been other such cats in the neighbourhood), a local woman thinks she might have glimpsed a big black cat on the Blyford Road towards Dunwich Forest (again, other sightings locally).

There have also been some curious goings-on involving a video said to have been received by a famous red-top national newspaper of a video of a black leopard from Hintlesham (just east of Hadleigh). For whatever reason, it's not been published and the journalist concerned hasn't got back to me.

I'm still surprised to be receiving testimony from people whose family members (usually their dads or grandads) claim to have had encounters with Black Shuck. The latest was from a man from Rattlesden (near Bury) who says his dad "many years ago" collided with Black Shuck one night on the A140 somewhere between Ipswich and Stowmarket. He got out to take a look, and found... nothing. He also described, in daylight the next day, finding some strange deposit "like eggshells" on the bonnet of his car.

I'll keep you posted on the progress of the book, with hopefully an announcement before too long. Meanwhile, you can follow developments at @MysteryAnimals on Twitter.


Update (2024): my book has now been published as Mystery Animals of Suffolk, available from bigcatsofsuffolk.com or via its distributor Bittern Books.

Wickham Market expedition - following up on big cat sighting

As Centre for Fortean Zoology regional rep for Suffolk, I now am supposed to send in reports of mystery or out-of-place, according to the latest issue of Animals and Men. So here is my first report.

Carrying out investigations at Wickham Market sports ground


There was a report in the East Anglian Daily Times and the Daily Mirror of a sighting of a melanistic leopard by A-level student Eliot Evans, who was out jogging on the village sports ground in his native Wickham Market last Thursday evening just before dusk. The Mirror's version was in its "Weird News" section. But given that 25 per cent of British mammals (including us) are introduced to these islands, yet another introduced species like a leopard isn't that "weird" after all. (Wickham Market's in the Suffolk Coastal District of the county Suffolk, it's a train stop between Woodbridge to the south and Saxmundham to the North, and it's near the west bank of the River Deben. People in Suffolk Coastal sometimes refer to it as just "Wickham", as there's little risk of confusing it with the village of Wickham Skeith at the northern end of Mid-Suffolk.)

When I went to take a look I hadn't yet been able to track down Eliot Evans or David Galvin, who said there was a black leopard locally that had been seen before. A quick look at the internet reveals that Galvin, former British Big Cats Society rep for Suffolk, who saw a black leopard in a local forest some time before 2003, was also a witness to a UFO over Wickham Market High Road in 2009.

Wickham Market sports ground

The short cut past the pavilion - a route for big cats too?

Wickham Market FC

There had been a football match on Wickham Market FC sports ground between the sighting and my arrival on Saturday, judging by the marks from football boot studs that had considerably churned it up, so there was little hope of finding any big cat prints. Parts of the edge of the ground was a bog anyway after a lot of heavy rain. The ground has a path going off to a short-cut through a little bit of woodland that was in use when I dropped in, going past the Wickham Market FC pavilion. I have to admit I only had an hour between trains to stop at Wickham Market station - actually nearer the village of Campsey Ashe two miles away by folding bike, so I really only had time to stop at the location and take pictures then rush back to catch the next train.

Bridge over the River Deben near Wickham Market, where it's a trickle

I did notice that Wickham Market's near a riverbed - the River Deben is a trickle here, near its source, but it looks like typical "big cat country" - wetlands, reeds, out of the way and the sort of place you'd expect deer or waterfowl to drop in for a drink, providing a readily accessible food source.

My earlier research showed that there was a cluster of multiple big cat sightings around a decade ago around Bredfield, a couple of miles to the south. These were of a non-specific "big cat" whose witnesses couldn't confidently identify it as either a leopard or puma. There was a black big cat with "tufted" ears seen on Ufford Park golf course a few miles to the north in 2009. Suffolk's earliest known (by me at least) big cat sighting was a black leopard seen in Rendlesham Forest in the 1970s, not far from Wickham Market.

Loudham Hall's Suffolk big cat, tucked away in a secluded spot by the Deben just outside Wickham Market


Wickham Market used to be a rail terminal for live cattle brought from Ireland to be grazed locally in the water meadows, with a major cattle auction. The auction house now does mostly antiques and vintage cars, I was told that during busy periods there will be three auctions going on simultaneously. It's known as a "large village," it's certainly the only village I've seen with its own bike shop.

The area around Wickham Market has been the stomping ground of other out-of-place animals. A rhea was seen near the railway line at Wickham Market in 2010, it died probably of a stress-induced heart attack after being shot with a hypodermic by the RSPCA. Another rhea on the line briefly delayed the Ipswich to Lowestoft East Suffolk Lines train service in 2012, and was never accounted for. Might it have ended up being eaten by a local big cat, assuming a big cat could keep up with a rhea running at up to 40mph.

Ending up as big cat food may have been the ultimate fate of the wallaby seen by a cyclist at Pettistree, immediately to the south of Wickham Market, in 2004.

Passing under pylons at Campsey Ash. You know you're approaching Wickham Market station by train or along the A12 road when you see the pylons. You can navigate by these pylons in Suffolk Coastal, as they march inland and southwest from the nuclear power station at Sizewell.

It's all in the forthcoming Mystery Animals of the British Isles: Suffolk.

Quick update (28/1/16) Elliot Evans contacted me via Twitter to tell me I'd photographed the wrong sports field in Wickham Market! He sent me a Google satellite image with the field where he'd seen the big cat ringed. It was further out of the village, just beyond the little crossroads on its northern edge, in what seems to be a set of three little five-a-side football pitches they're so new they don't even feature in my Collins Street Atlas of Suffolk, which is just under 18 months old. The random Wickham Market resident I asked for directions on my most recent trip directed me to "the village sports ground", presumably thinking I meant the Wickham Market FC ground, which isn't far from the new sports ground where Elliot saw the melanistic leopard. I hope to photograph the correct location soon.