Apples fall from the sky over Coventry

An avalanche of more than 100 apples rained down over a main road in Keresley, Coventry on Monday night.


The street was left littered with apples after they pelted car windscreens and bonnets just after rush-hour.

The bizarre downpour may have been caused by a current of air that lifted the fruit from a garden or orchard, releasing it over the junction of Keresley Road and Kelmscote Road.

One driver said: "The apples fell out of the sky as if out of nowhere. They were small and green and hit the bonnet hard.

"There were other cars on the road at the time too and everyone had to stop their cars suddenly.

"It wouldn't surprise me if some cars were damaged. I know the area well and there are no apple trees around."


Yesterday, the smashed apples could still be seen up and down the 20-yard stretch of road.

Dave Meakins, a retired fork lift truck driver, said he thought the apples had been thrown as a prank by children.

"I honestly don't know where the apples could have come from," he said.

"I assumed kids must have thrown them because we do get the occasional egg and apple thrown but there's way too much for that.

"I would love to know where they came from."

Some said they thought the apples had fallen from a passing plane.

Keresley parish councillor Sandra Camwell said a freak black-out happened on the same road last year.

She said: "Strange things do happen in this part of the world. I think it's highly likely that apples did fall from the sky.

"We're in an area with a spooky history, where there have been witches for centuries, after all."

The Met Office said it was possible the apples had been scooped up by a tornado.

He said: "It's hypothetically possible that a tornado could have picked them up and that they were transported in turbulent air until they fell."

Jim Dale, senior meteorologist, from British Weather Services, said: "The weather we have at the moment is very volatile and we probably have more to come.

"Essentially these events are caused when a vortex of air, kind of like a mini tornado, lifts things off the ground rising up into the atmosphere until the air around it causes them to fall to earth again.

"Returning polar maritime air is such an unstable condition and it basically means air returning from the polar regions which is very unstable.

"We've all heard of the fish and frogs falling from the sky and apples is certainly unusual because they have some weight to them but it is not out of the realms of possibility."

Donna Bowater
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8956076/Apples-fall-from-the-sky-over-Coventry.html

WHERE'S WALLABY? (via Paul Cropper)

WHERE'S WALLABY?
Sam Dimmer
14 April 2010
Coventry Evening Telegraph

Trucker is caught on the hop by sighting
STREWTH! Has a wallaby been spotted in Warwickshire? A lorry driver passing through Long Itchington on Sunday night certainly reckons he saw one nibbling on grass on the outskirts of the village. The sighting comes after a spate of sightings a few miles away in Northamptonshire leading experts to believe that a colony could be thriving in the area.

Alan Guscott, who spotted the mild-mannered marsupial, said: "It was a little after midnight while driving through Long Itchington, I spotted what I first thought was a kangaroo. "I slowed for a look and realised that at about 3ft 6ins it was too small. It didn't run off even after I almost stopped. It was raining hard and it's brown coat was soaking wet. It was nibbling grass on the verge and looked at me, then carried on nibbling. It was on it's own as far as I could tell."

"My mates didn't believe me and thought I had been drinking, even though I'm teetotal. It's the first time I have ever seen one in this country."

It's not the first time a wallaby - normally found in the Australian outback - has been spotted hopping around the UK in the wild. In the 1930s five were released from a private collection and found conditions in the Derbyshire Peak District suited them. They began breeding and by the 60s a small colony had developed drawing tourists from far and wide but after a series of savage winters it was feared that the wallabies had died out.

Now several fresh sightings have been made across the UK, leading experts to suggest that wallabies may be here to stay. Kiri Charlton, education officer at Drayton Manor Park's zoo, said that their wallabies thrive in the UK climate. "We have four," she said. "And the only shelter they have is a hut with a bit of straw in it.
"There's not really any predators for them, so I suppose they could survive. It depends really on how well they were treated in the first place. If they are used to being fed then they would struggle to fend for themselves."
Christopher Lee, landlord of the Cuttle Inn, on Southam Road in Long Itchington suspected another foreign imposter might be to blame for the wallaby sighting.

"I would guess the driver saw a Muntjac deer," he said. "They do hop about a bit like a wallaby."

HAVE YOU SEEN THE MYSTERY MARSUPIAL? OR HAVE YOU SPOTTED ANY OTHER STRANGE ANIMALS IN OUR AREA? EMAIL: sam.dimmer@coventrytelegraph.net
CALL: 024 76 500 222