Tag Archives: rat

Four Portraits and a Video

The portraits are more of the smaller furry creatures that I’ve been photographing lately, but if you are not keen on rodents the video should make a welcome break in the recent trend. I’ll come to that in a moment. The mornings are becoming very gloomy at the moment, which probably suits the local rats rather better than many other pond inhabitants. There were several scurrying around on the pond fringe this morning, and they were quite bold.

Rat

Rat

Rat

Rat

I mentioned a few days ago that two of our local foxes had injured legs. I’m pleased to say that both foxes are on the mend, and are visiting nightly (though not when I’m around with a camera. The video is not one of the limping pair.It’s a short clip of Pretty, exploring just before midday today. It’s good to see her back in the garden, and with a bit of luck I may even get a photograph or two.

Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

Posted in Foxes, rats, Wildlife Also tagged , |

Rats on Friday (plus badger video)

The foxes may be giving me the runaround at the moment, but another local mammal is proving rather easier to capture in the lens. So much so that I’m running out of blog titles for these posts.

There are two sequences here, taken at opposite ends of Falmer Pond. Both feature adult rats. A woman walked past as I was photographing the first sequence. She’d seen something dart into the bushes, paused and then moved closer to look again. I confirmed that, yes it was a rat. She said it looked rather cute! So here’s cute rat number one. It was coming out to snaffle up crumbs of bread left over from duck-feeding on the pond fringe.

rat foraging

rat foraging

rat foraging

The second sequence was taken at the top of the steep bank at the village end of the pond. This particular rat would appear over the side of the bank, dash forward, grab some seeds and dash back under cover.

rat foraging

rat foraging

rat foraging

There are still several foxes visiting, a couple of which are bearing typical fox leg injuries: Nicked Ear has a hind leg injury, and another of the foxes is carrying one of its front legs. We’ve also had badgers come and go.

I’ll close tonight’s post with some footage of the badgers, and good thoughts towards those out in the West Country working to #stopthecull

Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

Posted in Badger, rats, Wildlife Also tagged , |

Time for Feathers (and just a hint of fur)

Once again it was very foggy this morning, but despite the conditions I headed to the pond. As you can see the conditions were – let’s say – sub-optimal.

Grey heron in early morning mist

The skies had cleared by mid-morning. The small flock of greylag geese were in typically rumbustious mood.

Greylag geese

Greylag geese

There was the briefest hint of some sunshine too. The Muscovy ducks (known as ‘ugly ducks’ locally), were enjoying a drink out on the island in the centre of the pond.

Pair of Muscovy ducks

And of course there are always the mallards and the herring gulls…

duck,gull and rat

The gull took off as I edged in for a closer look. The duck and the rat (yes, a hint of fur) were rather more preoccupied with foraging.

duck and rat

duck and rat

duck and rat

Tonight’s final shot is a cute family portrait!

Adult and juvenile brown rats

Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

Posted in Behaviour, Birds, rats, water birds, Wildlife Also tagged , , , , |