A
Anonymous
Guest
Don't know if this is very 'Crypto...' It's based on behaviour of already-known animals. Feel free to move it, mod-types.
Ok. So it's a 'well known fact' that squirrels do 'ingenious' things to get at bird food in gardens. Lots of wildlife documentaries and averts have been made with this premise in mind. However, I have recently been witness to rats exhibiting the same behaviour.
In my mother's back garden (which is located in a rural British location), there is a bird-feeder, accompanied by two 'Fat-balls', hung from the top of a decorative metal frame for growing plants up. This stands about six feet in height, and is a good three feet from the garden boundary, which is marked out by a six-foot stone wall, covered in ivy.
On a number of occasions, my mother, her neighbour, and now myself have observed the following. A large, adult male Brown Rat (Clearly distinguishable from either species of squirrel in the country) emerges from the ivy at the top of the wall (having presumably climbed up it from ground level). He waits for a moment, as if readying himself, then leaps across to the metal plant-tower-thing. Using his limbs and semi-prehensile tail to grip it, he manouvers himself to directly above the feeder and fat-balls, then lowers himself down, hanging on by his back feet and balancing with his tail, to the food. He then eats his fill, clambers back up to the top and leaps off into the ivy again.
Thhis is the first time I have seen this particular behaviour in a rat, though from years of looking after domesticated fancy rats, I know they do appear to have an ability to improvise.
Any other death-defying/promlem solving rat anecdotes out there?
Ok. So it's a 'well known fact' that squirrels do 'ingenious' things to get at bird food in gardens. Lots of wildlife documentaries and averts have been made with this premise in mind. However, I have recently been witness to rats exhibiting the same behaviour.
In my mother's back garden (which is located in a rural British location), there is a bird-feeder, accompanied by two 'Fat-balls', hung from the top of a decorative metal frame for growing plants up. This stands about six feet in height, and is a good three feet from the garden boundary, which is marked out by a six-foot stone wall, covered in ivy.
On a number of occasions, my mother, her neighbour, and now myself have observed the following. A large, adult male Brown Rat (Clearly distinguishable from either species of squirrel in the country) emerges from the ivy at the top of the wall (having presumably climbed up it from ground level). He waits for a moment, as if readying himself, then leaps across to the metal plant-tower-thing. Using his limbs and semi-prehensile tail to grip it, he manouvers himself to directly above the feeder and fat-balls, then lowers himself down, hanging on by his back feet and balancing with his tail, to the food. He then eats his fill, clambers back up to the top and leaps off into the ivy again.
Thhis is the first time I have seen this particular behaviour in a rat, though from years of looking after domesticated fancy rats, I know they do appear to have an ability to improvise.
Any other death-defying/promlem solving rat anecdotes out there?
