Well that was a shock

[Bee]

Bloody wildlife! Over the years I've had hibernating bees, one rat that lived (briefly) in the insulation around the oven, a hornets nest whilst building Bee, a moorhen that the cat dragged in and several mice. We have rescued a young hare from the K&A that jumped straight back in again, used the boat to drive a deer to a bit of bank that it could climb up and also a grass snake or two. We also woke up one morning to see the underneath of a red squirrel that was sitting on the roof above the bed doing something with its nuts.

[rusty69]

11 minutes ago, Bee said:

Bloody wildlife! Over the years I've had hibernating bees, one rat that lived (briefly) in the insulation around the oven, a hornets nest whilst building Bee, a moorhen that the cat dragged in and several mice. We have rescued a young hare from the K&A that jumped straight back in again, used the boat to drive a deer to a bit of bank that it could climb up and also a grass snake or two. We also woke up one morning to see the underneath of a red squirrel that was sitting on the roof above the bed doing something with its nuts.

Perhaps Bee was not the best thing to name a boat. Still, its better than Rat I spose.

[magnetman]

I've got ducks and we also get pheasants on the estate. 

 

Just found a description of this country estate when it was for sale in 1908. Quite a nice estate it was too. Elegant pleasure grounds and adequately timbered gardens. 

 

Seems alright. 

 

we also get those pesky parakeets. They need shooting. 

 

 

[Francis Herne]

15 hours ago, dmr said:

Two weeks ago we opened the front door to find an old cold wet and shaking collie dog on the front deck. Much nicer than a rat.

[yes, my walls are that yellow. I must address this sometime]

 

I looked up late one evening to see this young cat peering in at me through the window. Not unusual (even for cats), except it was the offside window! Then he tried to turn around and disappeared with a *splosh*. Good thing I saw him first or I'd have put it down to waterfowl as normal.

Fished him out swimming along the piling, he dried out for a bit and then decided to leave.

Learned the next day that he's called Marmaduke and lives in one of the houses facing the cut. Probably hadn't seen a boat before as not a popular mooring spot.

 

The horses near Wordsley are always in the cut in the summer. If it's hot they go right into the channel.

15 hours ago, dmr said:

 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by Francis Herne

[magpie patrick]

I did for a while have a water vole visiting Juno on a regular basis - the problem was solved by mooring bow in (she's on an end on mooring) - clearly getting from the pointy end to the back was too much like hard work. 

What puzzled me was the cuppa soups it had opened - crisps and biscuits okay, but was it trying to make a beverage? They're protected (I think) so I just rearranged things so it couldn't get at the food. 

 

In one flat I rented an entire sliced loaf went walk about - I found the bag on the worktop and the loaf neatly stacked at the back of the cupboard, presumably awaiting collection...

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Grassman said:

 

None of those 'plug in' devices work. The mice or rats just get used to them. During my 10 years as a pest controller I attended many infestations where the householder had these devices plugged in all over the place.

That is the same as the plastic owls to keep seagulls away. I had a photo of a gull sitting on the head of one.

[magnetman]

8 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

I did for a while have a water vole visiting Juno on a regular basis - the problem was solved by mooring bow in (she's on an end on mooring) - clearly getting from the pointy end to the back was too much like hard work. 

What puzzled me was the cuppa soups it had opened - crisps and biscuits okay, but was it trying to make a beverage? They're protected (I think) so I just rearranged things so it couldn't get at the food. 

 

In one flat I rented an entire sliced loaf went walk about - I found the bag on the worktop and the loaf neatly stacked at the back of the cupboard, presumably awaiting collection...

When we had the barge a rat got in through one of the engine bay vents, found its way to a cupboard which had a bag of Quality Street type chocolates and transported them one by one (about 32 of them) to the engine bay. 

 

It must have then worked out that it could not get back out with the chocolates due to the climbing issue or perhaps been spooked and left them in a pile immediately below the vent. 

 

when I found them some time later every single wrapped chocolate had tiny teeth marks. It obviously checked each one to make sure they were all the same thing. 

 

I found it quite funny in a number of different ways. I expect the rat was rather pissed orf about it. 

 

Chocolates went in the bin where the rat probably found them later anyway. 

 

Maybe it was a master plan. 

 

 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by magnetman

[ditchcrawler]

9 minutes ago, magnetman said:

When we had the barge a rat got in through one of the engine bay vents, found its way to a cupboard which had a bag of Quality Street type chocolates and transported them one by one (about 32 of them) to the engine bay. 

 

It must have then worked out that it could not get back out with the chocolates due to the climbing issue or perhaps been spooked and left them in a pile immediately below the vent. 

 

when I found them some time later every single wrapped chocolate had tiny teeth marks. It obviously checked each one to make sure they were all the same thing. 

 

I found it quite funny in a number of different ways. I expect the rat was rather pissed orf about it. 

 

Chocolates went in the bin where the rat probably found them later anyway. 

 

Maybe it was a master plan. 

 

 

 

Activation, travel distance, and environmental change influence food carrying in rats with hippocampal, medial thalamic and septal lesions: implications for studies on hoarding and theories of hippocampal function - PubMed (nih.gov) 

 

 

I understand very few words 

 

Activation, travel distance, and environmental change influence food carrying in rats with hippocampal, medial thalamic and septal lesions: implications for studies on hoarding and theories of hippocampal function

 

 

[magnetman]

I reckon it had trouble getting back out as the vent was at least 2ft above the surface below. 

It may have been stuck in the boat and only exited later when door was opened. 

[wakey_wake]

4 hours ago, magnetman said:

You can kill more or less anything in an enclosed space with a CO2 fire extinguisher. Probably best to leave the zone post haste for a number of different reasons.

By excluding O2, yes. I was under the impression that a large dose of CO2 is unpleasant but not immediately harmful, from someone claiming that one "could let off a CO2 extinguisher in a phone box and it wouldn't kill you".

Not something I want to try.

 

1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

Activation, travel distance, and environmental change influence food carrying in rats with hippocampal, medial thalamic and septal lesions: implications for studies on hoarding and theories of hippocampal function - PubMed (nih.gov)

Interesting discovery!

My translation without reading the paper (sorry, haven't got the stomach for it),

"We cut some rat brains in various ways, to see how it would change their behaviour. We hoped to learn something about what the different brain regions do - and that might tell us something about those same regions in humans."

[magnetman]

7 minutes ago, wakey_wake said:

By excluding O2, yes. I was under the impression that a large dose of CO2 is unpleasant but not immediately harmful, from someone claiming that one "could let off a CO2 extinguisher in a phone box and it wouldn't kill you".

Not something I want to try.

 

 

I think the reason it would not kill you is because you would open the door of the phonebox and get out. If the door was bolted shut it seems like there would be a lack of oxygen. 

 

[Francis Herne]

10 minutes ago, magnetman said:

I think the reason it would not kill you is because you would open the door of the phonebox and get out. If the door was bolted shut it seems like there would be a lack of oxygen.

The 2kg of CO₂ released by a normal-sized extinguisher is about 1m³ at atmospheric pressure.

 

That's about half the volume of the phonebox, but only about ⅓rd of the original air (and the oxygen) would be displaced by overpressure as some of the CO₂ would be displaced too. This would be enough to cause impaired judgement and perhaps nausea, but probably not unconsciousness and definitely not death if you're otherwise reasonably healthy.

 

The body's sense of "needing to breathe" is actually based on CO₂ concentration rather than oxygen, so it would feel like you were being choked to death even if you aren't. Probably not a good idea.

[Guest]

This reminded me of a few years back when we once went out our rear doors to view a rat happily chewing on the fat/nut ball we had hung out for the birds. It was hung on the end of the trellis in the garden.

 

It clocked us,  our Jack clocked it and was off like a shot towards it. Rattie scrambled down the trellis and they nearly met at the bottom but it managed to scoot off under the shed a milli sec. before it was in the 'jaws of death'. Having watched our little dog shake his furry toys there is very little doubt that had he caught it it would not have survived.

 

After that we have not put food out for the birds which is a shame (and we put some poison down under the shed) we have never seen another.

 

The worst rat incident we ever experienced was at work when a huge amount of scurrying could be heard under the floor at one of our (very old) hospitals. Sure enough there was a huge number of Ratties scuttling about. Works on a local building site had apparently disturbed them and they decided to move to more pleasant and less noisy home. They were exterminated but the smell from the huge number of rotting Ratties under the floor was a stench I have never experienced in my life.

 

Some poor sod from the company was sent down to shovel them all up into bags before we could use the area for patients once again.

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by M_JG
Correction

[MtB]

4 hours ago, magnetman said:

I've got ducks and we also get pheasants on the estate. 

 

Just found a description of this country estate when it was for sale in 1908. Quite a nice estate it was too. Elegant pleasure grounds and adequately timbered gardens. 

 

Seems alright. 

 

we also get those pesky parakeets. They need shooting. 

 

 

Ah yes, ring-necked parakeets.

 

Wring their necks!!

 

[gatekrash]

2 hours ago, M_JG said:

This reminded me of a few years back when we once went out our rear doors to view a rat happily chewing on the fat/nut ball we had hung out for the birds. It was hung on the end of the trellis in the garden.

 

It clocked us,  our Jack clocked it and was off like a shot towards it. Rattie scrambled down the trellis and they nearly met at the bottom but it managed to scoot off under the shed a milli sec. before it was in the 'jaws of death'. Having watched our little dog shake his furry toys there is very little doubt that had he caught it it would not have survived.

 

After that we have not put food out for the birds which is a shame (and we put some poison down under the shed) we have never seen another.

 

Our next door neighbour feeds the birds excessively, she has multiple bird feeding stations and refills them 2 or 3 times a day. She also insists on throwing chunks of white bread down on the ground under the feeders.

Unsurprisingly we have a rat problem in the area. Admittedly we back onto a farm, so it's sort of expected, but we have loads of them. I can usually shoot one or two a week as they transit our garden and if I've put the night vision on the rifle then later evenings are a free for all. 

I've shot several hanging from the bottom of the feeders, they climb up the trees to get to them then just dangle. I told her I was going to shoot the rats and she was quite happy about it !

 

She's also created a feral pigeon issue. Fortunately the guy up the road breeds racing pigeons and he traps the ferals because they pass diseases onto his birds. His record was 24 birds with stretched necks in a day.

 

We spoke to the council environmental health about it but they told us there wasn't much they could do, they'd issue a 'desist' notice but didn't have the time or money to follow it up if she ignored it.

 

[tree monkey]

6 minutes ago, gatekrash said:

Our next door neighbour feeds the birds excessively, she has multiple bird feeding stations and refills them 2 or 3 times a day. She also insists on throwing chunks of white bread down on the ground under the feeders.

Unsurprisingly we have a rat problem in the area. Admittedly we back onto a farm, so it's sort of expected, but we have loads of them. I can usually shoot one or two a week as they transit our garden and if I've put the night vision on the rifle then later evenings are a free for all. 

I've shot several hanging from the bottom of the feeders, they climb up the trees to get to them then just dangle. I told her I was going to shoot the rats and she was quite happy about it !

 

She's also created a feral pigeon issue. Fortunately the guy up the road breeds racing pigeons and he traps the ferals because they pass diseases onto his birds. His record was 24 birds with stretched necks in a day.

 

We spoke to the council environmental health about it but they told us there wasn't much they could do, they'd issue a 'desist' notice but didn't have the time or money to follow it up if she ignored it.

 

I've previously spent some time with an air rifle on the moorings (off side private access) and kept the numbers down but I no longer have the gun on site for complicated reasons

 

[mrsmelly]

17 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

And on the Llangollen :

 

 

 

My foto a few posts back was indeed on the Llangollen. Summer 2000.

[TheBiscuits]

7 hours ago, rusty69 said:

Perhaps Bee was not the best thing to name a boat. Still, its better than Rat I spose.

 

It's shorthand for the "B ark" or more formally the "Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B"

 

Maybe @Bee used to be a telephone sanitiser 😁

[Hudds Lad]

8 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

It's shorthand for the "B ark" or more formally the "Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B"

 

Maybe @Bee used to be a telephone sanitiser 😁

If i'd known this sooner, i could have paid for those door lock parts in leaves!  

Not sure how many deciduous forests equal one lock part at todays exchange rates though  

[ditchcrawler]

52 minutes ago, gatekrash said:

Our next door neighbour feeds the birds excessively, she has multiple bird feeding stations and refills them 2 or 3 times a day. She also insists on throwing chunks of white bread down on the ground under the feeders.

Unsurprisingly we have a rat problem in the area. Admittedly we back onto a farm, so it's sort of expected, but we have loads of them. I can usually shoot one or two a week as they transit our garden and if I've put the night vision on the rifle then later evenings are a free for all. 

I've shot several hanging from the bottom of the feeders, they climb up the trees to get to them then just dangle. I told her I was going to shoot the rats and she was quite happy about it !

 

She's also created a feral pigeon issue. Fortunately the guy up the road breeds racing pigeons and he traps the ferals because they pass diseases onto his birds. His record was 24 birds with stretched necks in a day.

 

We spoke to the council environmental health about it but they told us there wasn't much they could do, they'd issue a 'desist' notice but didn't have the time or money to follow it up if she ignored it.

 

Like when we moved into our cottage, out in the evening with the air rifle and torch at the back of the shed, Mk4 traps and finally poison stations

[Graham Davis]

We used to get rats in the interlocking room under the signal box I worked, that came from the racecourse stables across the road. Wasn't so bad if they just went in and out but occasionally one got caught in the rodding, get trapped and snuffed it.

One of my colleagues one day refused to enter the Box the smell was so bad. Luckily the "rat man" was only in Ludlow and was soon out to remove the smelly corpse. Thankfully they never managed to climb up to the operating floor.

[DandV]

Canal sides, and river banks seem to be ideal habitats and feeding grounds for vermin.

It actually amazed us, how little they seemed to venture on, and into moored boats seeing how accessible they must be to them. 

Given they still manage to get onboard dockside ships via mooring lines. 

 

[Ronaldo47]

Some 30 years ago we moored up at a spot where the well-used towpath was seperated from the canal edge by a couple of feet of verdant vegetation, including numerous saplings that provided fishing rods and bows and arrows for our young children. The grass was very long and overlapped the water. It was probably from this that we acquired a stowaway field mouse whose presence was detected by the grains of expanded  polystyrene insulation that appeared on the dinette table, no doubt from where it was carving itself out a home,  and a nibbled packet of instant mash. I found it in the food cupboard the next day and managed to dispatch it with a handy tin of baked beans.

[TheBiscuits]

1 minute ago, Ronaldo47 said:

a nibbled packet of instant mash. I found it in the food cupboard the next day and managed to dispatch it with a handy tin of baked beans.

 

Ooh, Smash and baked beans. I haven't had that for years!