ShukerNature: SHEDDING LIGHT UPON THE MYSTERY OF LUMINOUS BIRDS

Is
this what a luminous or glowing owl would appear to be?

 THE
LUMINOUS OWL

A marvellous fowl is the luminous owl,
It glitters and glisters and gleams.
It lights up the night time in its shimmering flight,
A imaginative and prescient of marvel and desires.

Dr
Karl Shuker – from my Star Steeds and Different Goals poetry weblog

Anomalous
phenomena come into and exit of style very very like fashions themselves,
and the idea of luminous birds, particularly owls, is not any exception. All through
historical and medieval historical past, it was very a lot a topic for dialogue amongst
writers and students. Furthermore, there appears to have been a conventional,
longstanding perception in lots of rural areas the world over however notably in
Britain, continental Europe, North America, and Australia, that owls glow.
Certainly, ‘glimmer gowk’ is included in Charles L. Hett’s engrossing
avian dictionary A Glossary of Standard,
Native and Previous-Usual Names of British Birds (1899) amongst the favored
monikers for any British owl.

Nonetheless, through the previous century this
intriguing topic has slipped into digital obscurity. Certainly, however
the numerous eyewitness stories and huge physique of documentation referring to
luminous birds prior to now, sure modern-day skeptics breezily dismiss it as
a mere fantasy, a credulous fragment of countryside folklore confined and duly
consigned to bygone pre-scientific instances, and thence lengthy since discounted. As
will now be proven, nevertheless, by way of the number of instances documented in my
two-part survey right here on ShukerNature, the fact may be very completely different. Something way more tangible than fanciful folklore
seems to be concerned right here – however what?

What a spectacular sight a glowing owl could be!

One of many first coverages of this
intriguing phenomenon that I ever learn was an article by Depend Louis de Sibour entitled
‘The Existence of Luminous Birds’, initially revealed by the periodical Data (New Collection) in September 1913,
and subsequently collated by William R. Corliss in Unbelievable Life: A Handbook of Organic Mysteries (1981), one in all
his many invaluable compendia of scientific accounts documenting wildlife
anomalies and curiosities. In his article, de Sibour commented:

Few college students delve deeply in
pure historical past with out encountering the subject of luminous birds, and the professionals
and cons of the topic are developed by the reader with a frequency that exams
the credulity of any superficial investigator.

Indisputably, it has exerted a terrific
fascination for any scientist keen sufficient to look at and take severely the
myriad mysteries of unnatural historical past; however earlier than persevering with with my very own investigation
of it right here, I must current a number of definitions in an effort to forestall the
all-too-common confusion of sure related scientific phrases:

Incandescence is the emission of seen
mild from a substance heated to a excessive temperature. In distinction, luminescence
is the emission of seen mild (and typically different sorts of electromagnetic
radiation too) from a substance on account of any non-thermal energy-releasing
course of. If the luminescence ceases as quickly because the power supply is eliminated,
that is termed fluorescence; but when the luminescence persists (after-glow),
that is termed phosphorescence and is the kind of luminescence seemingly exhibited
by luminous aka glowing birds. Additionally requiring a definition right here is
bioluminescence – specifically, the biochemical creation and emission of sunshine by sure
sorts of residing organism (recognized from such types as fireflies, glow-worms, and
numerous deepsea fishes, plus some crops, fungi, and micro organism – however not birds…formally).

As famous by de Sibour in his article,
luminous birds have a really appreciable documented historical past, courting again at
least so far as the time of the celebrated Roman creator/naturalist Pliny the
Elder (23/24 AD-79 AD). He talked about one unnamed instance briefly in Quantity 3, Guide
10 of his encyclopaedic 10-volume, 37-book magnum opus Historia Mundi Naturalis (Pure
Historical past of the World), stating: “Within the Hercynian Forest, in Germany,
we hear of a singular sort of chicken, the feathers of which shine at night time like
fireplace”. The Hercynian Forest was the massive historical tract of dense woodland
that in Roman instances stretched throughout western Central Europe from northeastern
France to the Carpathian Mountains however which exists at this time solely within the type of
fragmented, relict expanses. It was stated to be dwelling to many wonders, together with
a bona fide unicorn supposedly seen by none aside from Julius Caesar (click on right here to learn my ShukerNature article
coping with it).

Pliny’s account of this mysterious
luminous chicken (and far else too from his above-cited multi-volume tome) was
regurgitated two centuries later by Latin geographer/compiler Clarius Solinus,
in Chapter 20 of his personal main work, De
Mirabilibus Mundi (On the Wonders of
the World – additionally subsequently republished in a significantly revised version
entitled Polyhistor). Shifting ahead
a millennium, Pliny’s report of a luminous tyoe of chicken was once more recycled in
an in depth work. This time it was De
Animalibus, written by the 13^th-Century German monk and scholar
Albertus Magnus (1208-1280), and eventually revealed in 1478 following the
invention of the printing press.

Conrad
Gesner, by Tobias Stimmer, 1564 (public area)

Furthermore, the 12 months 1555 noticed the
publication of the very first treatise devoted completely to luminescence in
animals. Entitled De Lunariis, and
written by Swiss naturalist/doctor Conrad Gesner (1516-1565), it not solely
included stories of luminous birds and lots of different sorts of phosphorescent fauna
courting again to historical instances but additionally included accounts of glowing crops
(click on right here to learn a ShukerNature article of
mine coping with anomalous light-emitting flowers) and even luminous stones.

A good higher work on luminescent
animals appeared in 1647 – a mighty three-volume publication authored by Danish
scientist Thomas Bartholin (1616-1680) entitled De Luce Animalium, of which its third quantity was devoted completely to
glowing birds. A few of these had been wholly legendary, such because the Egyptian phoenix,
the incendiaria avis or incendiary chicken (which set on fireplace any tree or home
upon which it perched), and the caladrius (in line with Roman mythology, a snow-white
chicken with therapeutic powers), however allegedly actual examples had been additionally included.

Egypt’s
coruscating phoenix (picture created by me utilizing MagicStudio)

Value mentioning is that only some years
earlier, in 1641, various glowing fowls had attracted a lot consideration at
a market in Montpellier, France, that even the distinguished French nobleman Henri
de Bourbon (1552-1588), 2^nd Prince of Condé, paid a particular go to to
observe them there. One, a cockerel, was killed in an effort to study it extra
carefully, and in line with Bartholin it: “shone on all components of his physique
with a remarkably sturdy mild”. That very same 12 months, a glowing hen was
displayed at a market in Montebello, which “shone like a ball of white
fireplace”, inspiring Bartholin to opine considerably drily: “It’s a pity
that the cock didn’t meet the hen; for we would then have obtained a breed of
incandescent fowls”!

Extra lately, England, the Pyrenees, and
the Vosges look like European areas from which accounts of luminous birds have
emerged – with essentially the most generally reported chicken sorts being owls (notably
barn owls) and herons. In a few of these instances, they’ve been immediately
identifiable as birds, albeit ones that glow, normally white, pale
yellowish-green, or reddish-yellow in color; in sure different instances, the
method of their flight has recognized them as birds.

How
an owl glowing pale yellow could look

The ‘flap’ of luminous owl sightings that
occurred throughout 1907-1908 close to the hamlet of Twyford in Norfolk, japanese
England, is probably essentially the most well-known, and final, to draw mainstream public
and scientific consideration, and has been broadly documented, albeit with many
variations and inaccuracies. Fortunately, nevertheless, a complete,
scrupulously-researched article entitled ‘The Luminous Owls of Norfolk’,
ready by veteran Fortean chronicler David W. Clarke, was revealed in 1994
throughout the inaugural quantity of Fortean
Research, the short-lived scholarly journal of the longstanding British
mysteries journal Fortean Instances, so
that is the supply that I’ve consulted when producing my very own protection right here.

Again
in 1897, gamekeeper Fred Rolfe noticed on a number of successive evenings close to King’s Lynn
in Norfolk an eerie vivid blue mild flying overhead. Lastly, he was capable of
shoot it along with his gun, and after it plummeted to the bottom he found that
it was a half-starved barn owl in very poor situation. The barn owl Tyto alba is a species well-known for
its nearly pure-white plumage however which has not been formally confirmed
scientifically to visibly glow. This incident remained uncirculated till
January 1908, when Rolfe made its particulars public following quite a few sightings
of a number of glowing owls having been reported near Twyford and the close by
Norfolk village of Foulsham throughout early and late 1907, in addition to January 1908.

When making public the next
info relating to Norfolk’s glowing owl(s) through the early 20^th
Century, English naturalist Digby Piggott revealed that after visiting the
particular areas in query throughout December 1907, he had obtained it
immediately from Foulsham-residing fellow naturalist and principal eyewitness R.J.W.
Purdy.

Purdy had knowledgeable Piggott that whereas in
the corporate of varied different eyewitnesses, together with his personal son in addition to a
Mr Spencer, he had skilled a number of sightings of a glowing owl in flight close to
Twyford and Foulsham. The primary sighting had taken place on 3 February 1907, with
a number of extra of what could (or could not) have been the identical particular person chicken occurring
throughout December 1907 and January 1908. Likening it in general look to a
lamp or lantern, Purdy recalled that on one event its luminescence was so
highly effective that even the branches amongst which it had perched had been illuminated,
and that its irradiance was similar to that of a bicycle lamp seen 300-400
yards away!

Additional observations of this exceptional
owl by Purdy and different eyewitnesses steered that its luminescence was
confined to its breast, as a result of its brightness was much less highly effective when it flew
immediately away from them, i.e. when
solely its again, wings, and tail had been seen to them. All through the time interval
spanning these sightings, this owl’s luminescence confirmed no signal of
diminishing. Purdy recognized the chicken as a short-eared owl Asio flammeus. Throughout this identical interval, furthermore,
sightings of a comparable creature had been additionally being reported on a nightly foundation elsewhere
in Norfolk, on the Haddiscoe marshes almost 30 miles southeast of Twyford, as
documented at the moment by famend English ornithologist J.H. Gurney within the British
periodical The Zoologist. Please
seek the advice of David Clarke’s article for an in depth protection of particular person eyewitness
accounts from this ‘flap’, in addition to Vol. 8 (spanning the years 1904-1909) of
the Transactions of the Norfolk
Naturalists’ Society, and Vol. 66 (1908) of The Zoologist.

Throughout the early Twenties, this
phosphorescence phenomenon obtained renewed media consideration following some
extra sightings, however maybe essentially the most well-known instance from that point interval
remained unreported for nearly 30 years, till the eyewitness in query, John
Welman, documented it in an article entitled ‘Forbidden Valley, which was
revealed by Blackwood’s Journal in September
1948. Welman had been visiting a lake in Anatolia, Turkey, with a companion
named Merrick once they beheld an unbelievable sight:

A luminous blob appeared on a
hillside distant and wavered fitfully like a bicycle lamp seen at a distance
on a windy night time…It swung spherical a clump of timber about 200 yards away, and got here
winging, swiftly and silently, in the direction of us. It was a chicken. Not less than, it had the
form of a chicken, and flew; however absolutely no mortal chicken ever glowed, as this one
did, with the incandescence of a gas-mantle [a nitrate-soaked fabric bag that produces a bright white light when heated by a flame; used in lanterns, gas lamps, and some oil lamps]. It regarded monumental, although I do
not say it was; such sudden brilliance speeding headlong at one out of the
ambient darkish, could have exaggerated its actual dimension. That it flew like a chicken and
shone like a lamp had been extra sure impressions accepted by my startled thoughts.
And when it got here nearer, I noticed that each feather of its plumage glittered with
tiny factors of sunshine, a sort of frosted fireplace which, with out the ability to
dazzle, was vivid sufficient to light up the branches of a tree by way of which it
handed. Its extensive, luminous wings appeared to beat the air with out disturbing it,
for they made no sound no matter. I discovered myself gripping Merrick’s arm and
cowering down because it approached looming greater and brighter each on the spot,
till, seeming about to fly proper in amongst us, it swerved apart and shot up in
an arc to cross above our heads.

A
glowing barn owl as vivid as a lantern!

The barn owl is native to Turkey (and
a lot else of the world too), and though Welman’s above account gives scant
particulars to help in figuring out the luminous chicken taxonomically, the info
that its wing beats made no sound (a well-known attribute of the barn owl when
searching for prey at night time) and that though showing monumental to the startled
eyes of Welman  it was nonetheless small
sufficient to have the ability to fly between the branches of a tree collectively recommend
that it might certainly have been a barn owl.

Numerous notes with reference to
glowing birds had been revealed within the Revue
Français d’Ornithologie by French ornithologist Louis Ternier utilizing
info provided to him by Gurney relating to the Norfolk sightings, as effectively
as some eyewitness stories emanating from northern Spain, and severe
scientific consideration had additionally been centered upon the topic by Dr W.L. McAtee
of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By the mid-Forties, McAtee had accrued
a sizeable file of eyewitness stories appertaining to glowing birds as
various taxonomically as owls, night time herons, and even Australian finches, which
he revealed as an extensively-referenced article within the July 1947 concern of the
American Midland Naturalist.

Evidently, sceptics however, the
phenomenon of luminous birds is real, however how can or not it’s defined? 5
principal potential options have been steered by beginner naturalists and
skilled scientists alike down by way of the ages, and these can be
mentioned in Half 2 of this two-part evaluation, to be posted right here on ShukerNature
very quickly – do not miss it!

NB – All photos of luminous owls included
right here had been created by me utilizing Grok.