Rat Fangs

Despite being an avid fan of the BBC's Springwatch it seems I still have not yet learned to tell the difference between a rat and a mouse (though I'm pretty sure I could tell the difference between sheep droppings and otter spraint). Our cats, Missy and Kia, managed to bring a rodent hostage into the house over the weekend. The thing went to ground beneath our oven and found further progress prevented by the constant supertrooper gaze of the cats who sat stolidly on patrol waiting for it to put a paw wrong.

In the end, armed with a torch and a stick, I set about trying to break the status quo by dislodging the creature - preferably into my custody - before the advent of Sunday lunch baked the little blighter into the lino. I was convinced it was a mouse. Small, cute, beady black eyes. I now suspect it was just an adolescent rat. Anyway, all I succeeded in doing was driving the thing from out beneath the oven and across the kitchen floor to the fluffy world that exists beneath the washing machine.

Our cats, prime mousers that they are, didn't move a muscle from the oven and indeed continued to sit on patrol for the rest of the night whilst Monty (as I shall christen him) gave them the finger from the other side of the kitchen.

I figured that sooner or later food would drive Monty out into the open and into some risky manoeuvre that would put him squarely into the hungry sights of our cats. I forgot about him. I let the cats wage their war of attrition and got on with my life.

Until I was awoken by terrified squeaking this morning and the sounds of a life and death game of hide & seek out in the hallway. I emerged to find the cats furiously pawing at the unloaded shoe rack and guessed that Monty had indeed made a bid for freedom and had got himself corralled by the cats into a hell of high heels and flip-flops.

If I'd been more awake I would have twigged that (a) a mouse would not have eluded 2 cats for this long, (b) doesn't make a huge deal of noise when panicked and (c) doesn't have a long, furless tail.

Trying to be a hero I thought I'd do the humane thing and rescue the little bugger. I am perversely proud to say that where the cats failed I succeeded and managed to capture Monty within my own paws after a mere 3 attempts.

At this point things went slightly awry when Monty sank his fangs into my finger and began to gnaw with the contempt only usually reserved for the UN by the Russians. I may have cried out at this point (in a manly way obviously) - especially as Monty was freely swinging from my finger like a weird piercing without any support from myself.  And I realise with the benefit of hindsight that Monty plainly felt himself caught between a rock and a hard place. He didn't want to be within my grasp so was biting me in self-defence but neither could he let go as gravity would drop him into the waiting jaws of Missy and Kia.

I did that stupid dance that one does in such situations - trying to decide whether it would be best to throw Monty out of the backdoor or the front-door before his gnawing pushed me to the conclusion that to part company in the quickest possible fashion would be best. I managed to get the front-door open with Monty still hooked into my finger and then, once outside, Monty was happy to let himself free-fall into the nearest bush. Missy followed him out and sat, slyly sentinel, for half an hour or so amongst the underbrush before returning empty jawed so I have no doubt that Monty escaped completely and utterly and is no doubt even now recounting to his family how he ran rings around 2 cats and a human and got a bit of a free feed out of it.

For me it has meant a trip to my GP and a week's course of antibiotics as according to my doc any kind of wild animal bite leads to infection in 9 out of 10 cases. Charming. I'm also to return immediately if I start to feel ill anytime over the next 2 weeks - rats can carry nasty diseases and while such infection is rare it can happen.

Next time I shall bugger humanity and batter the bugger's brains out with a pair of Doc Martens.

Rat In Me Kitchen (And Me Bathroom)

It started with rhythmic scratching.

Something sharp being clawed against wood and brickwork.

I was the only person to notice it at first and was hard placed to positively identify where it was coming from. Somewhere around the back of the kitchen cupboards possibly. I even attributed it to next door at one point (they’re students; I wouldn’t put it passed them to hollow out a cavity in the brickwork on their side of the house so that they could curl up into a ball and listen to their Radiohead albums in peace without the cruel world impinging upon their listening experience).

But then the scratching seemed to hone in and centre on the part of the wall that disguises a run of pipework from upstairs. When I say disguises I mean the pipe is quite obviously boxed in and as a consequence we have a bizarre buttress effect in the kitchen that goes all the way up to the bathroom and from there up into the loft.

For some reason, possibly because I was watching Spring Watch at the time, I thought it might be a trapped bird.

But trapped birds tend not to live very long and the scratching continued.

And then got higher. And higher. Until we could now hear it plainly in the bathroom. Something right behind the tiles, scratching at the grouting from the inside.

The cats got spooked. And then got interested. And now they watch that little patch of buttressed plaster and tile like it’s the telly. They’re just waiting for whatever it is to pop its head out of the splintered plaster like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. To be honest, even if it was actually Jack Nicholson my money would be on the cats.

I am, however, 99% sure it is a rat.

And relieved. I think Jack Nicholson might be a worse pest to deal with.

My biggest fear is that the little blighter is attempting to gain entry to the loft. This would be bad news because we keep various family heirlooms and the boxes from my Lego collection up there. Did I say my collection? I meant, of course, my kid’s. Plenty of scope for rat mayhem.

I’m pretty sure all is secure but I haven’t yet ventured up there. But the time is nearing.

If you don’t hear from me for a while you’ll know it’s because “daddy’s home”.

Death By Beaver

When beavers were introduced to Knapdale, Mid-Argyll in May 2009 I cheered.

Being part Scottish I could only celebrate with my far-Northern cousins that finally, at last, their beaver needs were being met. It is a little known fact that there has long been a shortage of beaver in Scotland. Some blame the Highland Clearances, some the proliferation of Buckfast and deep fried Mars bars, most put it down to the hordes of midge flies that are attracted to anything warm and moist. After all an itchy beaver is an unhappy beaver.

However, as the classic beaver spurns any kind of fashionable depilation, it was agreed that a good full musky pelt would be ample protection against even the most determined of hormonally driven irritants and therefore the whine and nip of insistent little pests would be “nay bother” to the eager beavers waiting to set up home in the west coast of Scotland.

The beavers were duly released and allowed to run free and to this day thrive and prosper in Knapdale, Mid-Argyll.

It is a story worthy of the BBC’s Springwatch. A conservation success story to be shouted from the rooftops although we are yet to see Chris Packham get to grips with a beaver live on telly despite Michaela Strachan’s best attempts to the contrary.

All should be well. Beavers and beaver jokes have been resurrected in the British Isles to the glory of all.

And then comes the disturbing news today that a man in Belarus has been killed by beaver. The beaver population in Belarus is an eye-watering 80,000. I’m not sure what ratio that is to the male human population but surely there is enough beaver to go around.

Details are currently sketchy but it seems the man had attempted to capture the beaver in order to have his photograph taken with it.

Well truly, what man has not savoured the adolescent dream of being photographed running his fingers through the quivering fur of a beautiful, perfectly formed beaver?

It seems this particular beaver was having none of it though. It didn’t want to be tied down. It didn’t want to be posed. It didn’t want to be stroked. It wanted to be left alone and photo-shoots be damned. It was plainly the wrong time of the month. The beaver was not in season. The beaver bit and bit hard.

The poor man consequently died of his injuries.

Although “death by beaver” may sound to some a glamorous way to go I suspect my Scottish brethren are now twitching nervously beneath their sporrans and analysing growing beaver numbers in the Knapdale area with a sense of gnawing trepidation. Prime air-time on Springwatch is all very well but with a beaver population explosion on the cards it is only a matter of time before there is bloodshed in the Scottish bush.

After all, an angry beaver with teeth is not something you want erecting a dam at close quarters in your kilt.