Rats, I've got a rat

[Charles B]

Rats are a problem when you feed birds. We have an ongoing battle with keeping a rat out of the garden dammed thing is clever...

I thought the squirrels were bad but this may very well be the start of an on going problem. The rat sat there dreamy eyed in my plastic tray of sunflower seeds eating most of them but courtiously leaving the shells there not making a mess. He or she was indeed not affraid of me until I showed anger.

Yesterday I had washed my balcony deck with high pressure hot 60° C. water but I also washed the shells, un-eaten sunflower seeds and moldy specks of suet (beef) over the edge.

The balcony sits 1.5 metres above my garden and in the corner is my neighbor's 13 metre long row of cherry laurel bushes where all the tits roost and nest. In the following photo you can see this 'tunnel' in the bush which is where all the tits come and go.



The squirrels had always jumpped from there to my railing until I set a rectangle planter on edge there weighted down by bricks and cut back the bush somewhat aggrevating the tits.

Now how this little fellow got up onto the railing and over is a mystery; his departure didn't go well on the way down.

So I washed down the balcony with cold water today and went out back there with my heavy field hoe looking for rat holes. What I did find is indeed washing my balcony left a pile of feed for the rats down there. So I got rid of it and covered the area with hard, lime-clay soil.

In doing so I was dive-bombed by an upset Great Tit who called out a loud and long: "Piiiiieeeps!"
Now was he or she only freightened or telling me off?

[Jacksparrow]

I have been known to complain about cats in my garden down to their habit of trying to catch my wild birds. However, the upside from their presence is that I haven't seen a rat for years. I have found the occasional dead rat on the lawn but no live ones for this I credit my visiting moggies. For the benefit of Charles B a moggy is a slang word for a cat.

[Charles B]

However, the upside from their presence is that I haven't seen a rat for years. I have found the occasional dead rat on the lawn but no live ones for this I credit my visiting moggies.

We used to have three cats which had claimed my garden as their own:
1.) A big black and white one which after +20 years died of old age.

2.) A nervous female Calico which belonged to my neighbor lady to the left who took her cat back to Italy with her.

3.) A mixed dark grey tiger cat belonging to my neighbor to the right with her cherry laurel bushes.
He was a really effective hunter but quite neurotic due to the maggpies swooping at him constantly.
He caught a poisoned rat somewhere and died.

But I never had Great Tits or Blue Tits during the days of these cats. Now my neighbor with the bushes just bought a rather timid Calico mix.
I have indeed, sorry to say, heard two dreafull raids on the Tits, but maybe now she keeps the cat indoors.

I can't have a moggy myself as our bathroom (for it's litter box) has only a passive vent but no window. Plus a moggy would indeed destroy my model railway layout and my wooden model ships straight away and no birds would visity balcony.

[Charles B]

I have two open, plastic feeding trays hung within my raspberry pergola structure on the balcony and the rat was feeding in the one on the south (open side) of the balcony. So I started removing these trays after dusk (when the tits have grabbed their late snack) and set them back out around 7:00 to 8:00. Hopefully this isn't too late for the tits but I need more sleep lately. I also don't know if this rat only eats until dawn or not.

Plus I installed a tray under my suet-ball cage on a plant container to collect the fatty crumbs; now I can keep the balcony floor area cleaner.