First glimpse of Heswall's mysterious 'big cat'?

The first was by a witness who said he was alerted by the sound of cats fighting in the early hours in the morning in Kestrel Road on Sunday, August 15.

He reported the siting to Puma Watch North Wales, a group which investigates and documents similar encounters.

He described the cat to be “about the size of a German shepherd dog” limping down the road at 2am.

A couple of weeks later, a few minutes from the first location sighting, another resident reported to Puma Watch that they had seen a big cat on Heswall’s Whitfield Common on September 1.

The resident, who was walking his dog, described the experience as “very frightening”.

Mr Devoy said: “I was walking the dog, didn’t suspect anything was up as the dog was acting as she usually does.

“I saw a large black silhouette in the tree line (perhaps the size of a fairly big dog). I stopped to get a better look and could see, fairly clearly, that it was a large cat.

“I know you’re meant to keep your cool in these situations, so I slowly walked away whilst keeping my eye on it and it followed in the treeline.

“My dog was oblivious to the whole thing, fortunately, I was near the exit and so exited the park area and made it home safely.

“The experience was very frightening, and I’ll be walking my dog in very residential areas from now on."

Since then, three more encounters have been reported between September 3 and 4 near Neston, Upton, and with a further third sighting in Heswall.

Now the cat has been spotted and caught on camera by a Globe reader.

Patrick Kentucky shared his picture of the mysterious creature which he spotted near Dawstone Park in Heswall yesterday (Thursday, September 9).

Picture: Patrick Kentucky

He said: “The cat got scared so only managed to grab this picture. It wasn't intimidating, it seemed fairly docile. I've seen articles about potential sightings, and I assume this is the cat in question.”