Oh clever little rats! (Rev)

Oh clever little rats!

First nuthatch of the year

So I am quietly working, whilst just outside my window the bird feeder is attracting the usual range of small birds (and the occasional nuthatch, which is the first time that I have seen them this year).

Something grey-brown and furry falling through the air attracts my eye. Is it a bird, is it a plane…? No it is a member of the small local rat colony in swift descent.

Now the rats for some time have been clearly interested in the bird feeders and have been benefiting from the odd dropped seed shaken out as the small birds feed. They have clambered up the old willow tree (as described in earlier posts) that the feeders hang from on long wires and considered them from every angle. They have stretched out towards the feeders, but they are just out of ratty reach. (This is of course deliberate on my part.)

There are two standard tubular bird feeders, one contains seeds and the other, which is slightly further from the trunk, balls of fat.

What the rats have worked out is that if they climb high enough in the tree they can drop down a foot or so to land on the flat top (about 2.5 inches across) of the seed feeder, but they are not really interested in the seeds.

This feeder is close enough to the fat feeder for them to stretch across to it. They then use those excellent little gripping ‘hands’ and ‘feet’ to manoeuvre around the feeder to gnaw on the fat. Once satiated they drop (about four and a half feet or 9 rat-lengths) to the ground. And it is not just one that one can do it… it seems that they all can!

stretching from the seed feeder to the juicy fat-feeder, with a robin looking on

I will have to re-position the feeders. (It is not that I am unsympathetic to the ratty ingenuity but that I am sure my neighbours will be less than delighted it they think I am feeding and attracting the rodents).

more ratrobatics.... and success!

Here is a diagram to explain further (the rats are 2-3 times life-size):