Picture: Eric Cormack. Image No.041871
A MORNING walk with her two dogs resulted in a bit of a shock for a retired Buckie staff nurse when she came face to face with a large black cat. It was no mere moggy which stared back at Irene Ferguson on Sunday, August 12 when she went for a stroll with her Jack Russell-chihuahua crosses through the rearmost part of Buckie New Cemetery at around 8.40am. She told the Advertiser: “I was walking the dogs down the path by the tool shed when I saw this big, black wild cat ahead of me on the path.
“It was sniffing around and it got halfway down the path towards me when it spotted me. It moved to the left and sat and watched me. “I was completely on my own except for my dogs. I wasn’t frightened, more fascinated than anything else as it sat about 100 yards away from me. It was quite big, jet black with a long tail curled up at the end. It was a beautiful animal, very elegant and graceful. The cat sat watching me until a man came along the path and it slipped away.”
Ms Ferguson, who lives near Seafield Hospital, said the route is a regular one she uses to walk her dogs. “I’ve seen plenty of deer round there but never anything like that, it was quite an experience,” she added. Her sighting of a large black cat in the area is not the first to come to light. During 2012 a number of sightings were reported around Buckpool and
Portgordon. March of that year saw the greenkeeper at Buckpool Golf Club claim he had seen a large black cat. Golfing partners John Coull and Joe Smith got more than they bargained for close to the sixth tee. No doubt more used to searching for lost balls, the duo were left stunned when a black cat leapt out from its hiding
place in the rough 25 yards away.
Just a few days prior to this sighting, the animal, or one very similar to it, was spotted in the vicinity of the old railway at Portgordon. Over the years an animal answering the description has been seen in the upper part of Portessie, leading to
theories that it has a territory following the course of the old coastal railway line.