As you’ll have gathered, I’m interested in my local wildlife. This means that I go out and try to find different species. Sometimes, however, the wildlife comes to me. And it isn’t always welcome.
Yesterday, our cat, Mayfield, caught a young rat. This is fine – this is part of her job, keeping the vermin under control. However, instead of killing it she brought it alive and kicking into the house. There followed 24 hours of the most relentless battle between man and beast since Ahab vowed vengeance on Moby Dick. After moving countless pieces of furniture and several near misses (rats can jump surprisingly high when pressed) I managed to finally corner and trap the little horror. The damned cat was no help whatsoever.
Normally, any rat caught on the property would be summarily despatched – no last meal, no final cigarette, nothing. Unfortunately they are vermin and they need to be controlled. But after chasing this one for so long I’d built up a grudging respect for it and in a fit of sentiment I took it outside and let it go.
So here you are, a new species for the blog – Rattus Norvegicus – the Brown Rat.
Rattus Norvegicus - the Brown Rat
They’d be an interesting species, if it wasn’t for the fact that a) rats are nasty, disease-carrying beasts (leptospirosis anyone?), b) I don’t want them anywhere near me or my chickens, and c) I certainly don’t want one living with me in my house. But any amateur naturalists should make a point of reading Rats: A Year with New York’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan, which describes how he studied the rats in a single alley in Manhattan. If you ever feel that there’s no wildlife where you live, this book is an inspiration. But I still don’t want one in the house.
Thank you for giving me a laugh on this dreary Monday morning! All the cats we’ve ever had have been obsessed with bringing live mice, birds and bats into the house (thankfully no rats yet, though) – and while the birds can usually be chivvied out of a window and the bats caught reasonably easily, the mice inevitably get behind the furniture, under bookcases, even inside the piano. (A bit of loud Beethoven usually flushes them out!) And the cats, of course, sit back with a languid yawn while we try to catch the poor things. Why do cats do this? Are they bringing us presents? Or trying to hint that we might do a bit of hunting too?
My sympathies. The last time my cat did this – and it was a big rat – I was up all night with it. At first light I borrowed next door’s terrier. She caught and dispatched it in seconds.
Ahab eh? funny enough we’re having an explosion of mice at the moment – not so much Moby Dick, more like piranha! Cheers for the book recommendation, I’ll try and source a copy.
John
Hi Jane – it sounds like I was lucky – we’ve never had a bat in the house and mice in the piano sounds like nightmare! And yes, the cat seemed to think that she’d done her job and the rest was up to me. We had a previous cat that used to leave dead mice on my wife’s pillow as a little present, so it could have been worse.
All the best
BWM