Wild ratty cousins

02 March 2003 ~ 18:35

Mark and I decided to go to said park to feed the waterfowl and pigeons typical of many London parks and also of this one. We'd previously seen a rat in some bushes growing around the trunk of a tree and thrown him nuts and bread. It so happened we had brought nuts this time too in case we encountered any squirrels.

We were surprised and thrilled when, upon arriving at our usual feeding site, we saw about three wild rats running around. Males and females of different sizes. We threw the bread and the birds immediately came towards us and began gobbling it up, but the rats also ran towards the pieces of bread, gathered them up in their mouths and ran into the bushes with them. I presume they had a burrow under the bush somewhere (actually, it's really a thick vine growing around a tree trunk), sort of like the tunnels beneath the rose bush in The Secret of NIMH!

There seemed to be several ratties running around and Mark called to me to throw them the nuts. So I tossed handfuls of peanuts in their shells and the rats eagerly took them and scurried away with them. We were absolutely thrilled to see some tiny baby rats among them who were understandably a little more nervous than the adults.

They looked just like agouti pet rats. (Agouti is the wild tri-colour brown you see on animals such as rats, rabbits etc.) Their coats looked glossy and they did not look scruffy or disease-ridden as some people might imagine.

We intend to go back and feed them again next week. After all, they are not doing any harm. It's not as if they've invaded someone's house or anything. They're living in a park amongst other wild creatures, minding their own businesses, just living off scraps left by the ducks or food discarded by litter louts.

To me, they're just cousins of our pet rats and I say: All power to them!


Stored nuts | Future acorns