As for ‘Big Cat’ sightings, a few years ago we used to hear of them occasionally in our end of the county of Angus. Then one day a neighbour mentioned having seen our then cat-beast, out and about a mile or so away across the fields. Fin was plain dark grey, exactly 40″/102cm long from nose to tail and then weighed a bit over 9.5kg. He could reach over halfway back across the kitchen work tops, if you can picture what size that might mean.
Seen stalking about field margins at dusk or momentarily lit by car headlights down at the road, it would be easy to think you’d glimpsed a big cat.
As for Nessie, I saw her around 1970 when I was a youngster, growing up in Fort Augustus. No camera though..