No, I'm not talking about people.
But I am talking about actual rats that have developed a taste for the froggys.
Got called up recently on a fox job, the landowner had a resident pair of foxes showing up on the trail cams in daylight as much as night, the 100 or so acres been turned sort of into a small reserve, moorland edge, quarry face, rushy grassland and a few ponds.
Foxes both removed (took until the second visit).
Then a third on the third visit, and a fourth on the fourth, you get the idea.
Whilst thermalising every inch of the place on an evening, trying not to bump up the resident buck and his six wives, and tripping over badgers, I noticed a few rats around a pond on the place.
They would work there way around the pond, and swim out to an island with a duck house on it, it is heavily covered in rushes, but you could clearly see the heat sigs of a small number of rats on there.
No ducklings for several years on this pond, get the rats sorted I was told.
The pond only has a couple of ducks on it, is not fed at all, which made me think what are the rats feeding on.
The trusy old Air Arms sub 12 S410 came out with the dated Yukon RT on top. (How did we cope with these whilst foxing).
Managed to pot four rats in a couple of hrs, three on the island, one on the bank.
I know, not a sporting achievement, but picking up the corpses the day after via the chest waders was an education.
This small number of rats, had somehow without any food source managed to scrape out a living targeting frogs as the main foodsource in this area.
Littering the island were bodies of spawning frogs, well remains of, they had even turned there attention to the later spawning toads which were partially eaten, heads, legs gone, bodies left, probs due to the toxic taste.
Well, thats about that, will go and clear the few remaining rats up this week, hopefully some ducklings might live this year (and a few frogs!).
It really surprises me still how certain animals scrape an existence out.
But I am talking about actual rats that have developed a taste for the froggys.
Got called up recently on a fox job, the landowner had a resident pair of foxes showing up on the trail cams in daylight as much as night, the 100 or so acres been turned sort of into a small reserve, moorland edge, quarry face, rushy grassland and a few ponds.
Foxes both removed (took until the second visit).
Then a third on the third visit, and a fourth on the fourth, you get the idea.
Whilst thermalising every inch of the place on an evening, trying not to bump up the resident buck and his six wives, and tripping over badgers, I noticed a few rats around a pond on the place.
They would work there way around the pond, and swim out to an island with a duck house on it, it is heavily covered in rushes, but you could clearly see the heat sigs of a small number of rats on there.
No ducklings for several years on this pond, get the rats sorted I was told.
The pond only has a couple of ducks on it, is not fed at all, which made me think what are the rats feeding on.
The trusy old Air Arms sub 12 S410 came out with the dated Yukon RT on top. (How did we cope with these whilst foxing).
Managed to pot four rats in a couple of hrs, three on the island, one on the bank.
I know, not a sporting achievement, but picking up the corpses the day after via the chest waders was an education.
This small number of rats, had somehow without any food source managed to scrape out a living targeting frogs as the main foodsource in this area.
Littering the island were bodies of spawning frogs, well remains of, they had even turned there attention to the later spawning toads which were partially eaten, heads, legs gone, bodies left, probs due to the toxic taste.
Well, thats about that, will go and clear the few remaining rats up this week, hopefully some ducklings might live this year (and a few frogs!).
It really surprises me still how certain animals scrape an existence out.
