FORTEAN FOLLOW-UPS
Updates on previous FT reports, including mysterious avian fatalities and exotic invaders
THE PARAKEETS OF LONDON [FT258:23]
Various explanations have been posited to explain how ring-necked parakeets arrived in the UK. According to the RSPB, Britain now has around 8,600 breeding pairs of the raucous, bright green parrots, outnumbering barn owls, nightingales and kingfishers. One rumour claimed that some parakeets escaped from the film set of The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, set in East Africa, but largely shot at Worton Hall Studios, Isleworth, in 1951. Another suggestion was that flamboyant guitar hero Jimi Hendrix owned a pair of the now-ubiquitous birds, which had escaped from his 1960s Mayfair flat, or even that he had deliberately released a pair (named Adam and Eve) on Carnaby Street in 1968.
However, recent research by University of London’s Goldsmiths, University College London and Queen Mary Universities has refuted these theories. Their study employed geographic profiling,
a statistical technique used in criminology, to analyse spatial patterns of parakeet sightings. Applied to biological data, this model can identify origin sites of diseases or introduction sites of non-native species. The study examined over 5,000 unique records dating from 1968 to 2018. None of the “suspect sites” linked to parakeet origin myths (e.g. Isleworth, Carnaby Street) appeared prominently in the resultant geo-profiling. Indeed, the researchers uncovered sightings from the 1860s, and intentional releases in 19291931 and 1952. Sensational newspaper stories of human deaths due to psittacosis infections appeared in 1929, and in 1932, the Middlesex County Times reported parakeets spotted in Epping Forest, blaming the “parrot disease scare” of 1931. “If you were told you were at risk being near one, it would be much easier to let it out the window than to destroy it”, said Sarah Elizabeth Cox, postgraduate history student at Goldsmiths.
The study also noted that by 1961, birds were more popular pets in the UK than cats and dogs, with 11 million captive birds of various species. Thus it
seems obvious there would be an increase in escapes. The first family group appears to have been spotted in Kent in 1969. Their range seems to have expanded in the 1970s, with records of nests in Greater Manchester, Surrey, Essex, Middlesex and Berkshire. The first recorded sighting of a single bird was in Norfolk, 1855, so Jimi Hendrix or The African Queen can finally be ruled out. BBC News, Times, 12 Dec 2019.
STARLING APOCALYPSE [FT388:4]
Following the grisly discovery of around 225 starlings found dead or dying in a country lane in Anglesey, North Wales, on 11 December 2019, a Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) investigation has determined that the birds died from injuries sustained upon impact with the ground, while tests for bird flu proved negative. Anne Goodenough, Professor of Applied Ecology (and starling specialist) at the University of Gloucestershire, suggested the birds had been part of a mass murmuration (when hundreds or thousands of starlings gather in the sky to form co-ordinated, swooping, intricate patterns) but had been disorientated by the Sun’s reflection on a wet road. “You could have had quite a lot of glare from that, that could have potentially confused the birds”, she said. “We know that can happen to birds, so we get swans and geese, for example, crash landing onto solar panels because they look like lakes. So that kind of almost visual hallucination can occur – whether that is the case here, we don’t know”.
In 2018, around 10 woodcocks were found dead in various parts of St Helier on the island of Jersey. Mick Dryden, a bird enthusiast, suggested the threatened wading birds might have become disorientated and confused by artificial lights in the town, lights reflected in glass-panelled buildings which they then crashed into. Mr Dryden, Chairman of the Ornithology Section of the Societe Jersiaise, commented: “Most birds are attracted by bright light at night... [but] they will fly around them”. BBC News, 20 Dec 2018; 19 Dec 2019.
CUBAN SONIC ATTACK [FT359:22]
From mid-2017 onwards, reports began appearing about US diplomats based at embassies in Cuba and China falling sick after being subjected to mysterious sonic ‘attacks’. Over 20 diplomatic staff in Havana fell victim to a range of unexplained health problems, which typically began after hearing strange grating or vibrating sounds. Despite strong denials, the US blamed Cuba for the ‘attacks’, expelling Cuban diplomats and worsening the long-standing diplomatic rift between the two countries. The US also withdrew non-essential
staff from its Havana embassy and advised its citizens not to travel to the Caribbean island.
However, a recently published article (‘Challenging the diagnosis of ‘Havana Syndrome’ as a novel clinical entity’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2019) suggests Cuba was innocent, and that no intentional targeting of US diplomats occurred at all. The report, co-authored by sociologist and expert in psychogenic illness, Dr Robert Bartholomew, together with neurologist Dr Robert W Baloh, argues that ‘Havana Syndrome’ (as the concussionlike symptoms became known) was the result of “emotional trauma and fear”. The authors propose that ‘Havana Syndrome’ be considered as a contemporary instance of shell shock, with symptoms comparable to those associated with war trauma: “A characteristic feature of combat syndromes over the past century is the appearance of an array of neurological complaints from an overstimulated nervous system that are commonly misdiagnosed as concussions and brain damage”. They add: “A signature feature of shell shock was concussion-like symptoms. Like today, their appearance initially baffled physicians until a more careful review of the data determined that what they were seeing was an epidemic of psychogenic illness. In fact, some of the descriptions from 100 years ago are virtually identical, right down to the use of the phrase ‘concussion-like symptoms’”.
The diplomats affected by the syndrome were, the article suggests, participants in “a continuation of the Cold War, living in a hostile foreign country where they were under constant surveillance”. It notes that “there is a long history of embassy staff suffering harassment at the hands of Cuban agents”. The US diplomats were “living in a cauldron of stress and uncertainty”, a situation exacerbated by rumours they were being targeted by a sonic weapon. A weapon, the authors say, for which no concrete evidence has emerged in three years. msn.com / independent.co.uk, 1 Nov 2019.