Me vs. My Cat

[Moke]

More tales of snakes,... on the patio

This is a large California King Snake, and, a patio pet of ours. 



Its been a while since we've seen it, but we used to see it quite frequently.
It came crawling onto out patio, and slinking along the footing on the back patio. It was headed towards our outdoor water heater closet, and when it got there, it crawled under the door, and into that space.
Suddenly, a momma mouse came scrambling back from under the door, and out onto the patio. And she had a whole litter of babies nursing while she ran, dragging them along.
Sarge, she who must be obeyed, grabbed one of my work boots, which are formidable weapons of size 16 leather, and taller ankle cuffs,.... she grabbed one of my boots and chucked it across the patio, and nailed the momma, killed her dead, and she killed and scattered some babies.
Me; I looked into the closet, and the King Snake was sitting on the nest, and eating more babies that got left behind.
So, I closed the door with the snake still inside, and I gathered the babies, and, dropped them back into the nest, where the King Snake looked up, and gave me a smile.

After a few more minutes, I looked again, and the snake was still there, and the babies were gone.

King Snake emerging from water closet after snacks:




Charging at me,....


Bluebelly Western Fence Lizard defending me:

[Moke]

over the last two nights,.... three rats.
last night, two.

two nights ago, 1:30am pee break, saw rat on bait. Went out to the blind, and, it was still there.
no pics because of 25' of noisy crunching gravel, and Sarge is asleep mere feet from the action. I whacked the backstop with a blow-through, but did not wake her up.

last night,... one rat before bed, pronounced dead at 8:45pm.
Then, at/after the 3am pee break, I decided to just go out onto the patio, and wing it. A Rat showed up within five minutes, or less. And at that hour, I hate to hit the backstop with a blow-through because Sarge is sleeping mere feet from all of the action. But I took aim, and fired, and, plugged the rodent, and didn't hit the backstop; Sarge slept through all of it.
Its 25' of loud crunching gravel to get to the backstop, so, no pictures were taken.

[Moke]

Last night,.... two more rodents.
One Mouse, and one Rat, both from the Red Light District

The Mouse,... this morning at 5am, as the sky was just starting to look like morning might arrive.
I popped it up against the backstop, and it fell pretty much in place.  By the time I got out to it,... vanished.

The first rodent, a Rat, came at 8:45pm, and, off to bed before normal time.
It emerged from the floor level of the Gallery, and stopped on the slight green groundcover in the images.  It stayed long enough that even my poor shotedness had a chance at it.
I pulled the trigger, hit it in the vitals right behind the front right leg.  It did one large butt-over-head tumble forward and came to rest where it stopped.  DOA at 8:45pm









After that, at the 1am pee break, I went back out, and, there was a very active Rat, But it would not stop running, and I gave it up for the evening, and went back to bed. 
Tonight.

[airgunaut]

You need some foxes. Among the gamecam videos of cavorting nocturnal foxes was one who was toting a small rodentish thing in its jaws. My husband and I looked at each other and said,
“Hmm, there must be more mice around but we never see one alive!”

[Moke]

We have some Foxes around here, but really quite rare.  They're probably kept in check by the Coyotes, Bobcats, and, Mtn. Lions.

And, this was presented to me this afternoon, at the mail check hour,.... I think that I used it correctly?

[Moke]

And, after careful review, I forgot the reverse side of the Rat flyer.

[Moke]

Rats,.... a bit scarce lately.

I got up this morning at half:dark:thirty (5:45am or so), and, had a look out over the Red Light District.  There, I saw something move at lightning speed.  So, I grabbed my still pumped and loaded Crosman from last night), and slipped behind my rodent blind.
Pop, head shot,....

Crosman 2289G, converted to 16" .177 with Mellon Air flat-top valve and piston
CP-Pointed 7.4 .177

[Moke]

Well, my neighbor loaned me his night vision binoculars, yesterday, and, somehow, purely by accident, I managed to accidently push the record button mere seconds before Rattus Rattus entered the gallery. This was purely by mistake, because I'm lucky, not good.  I did not get a shot at it.

[only1harry]

No one could have taken a shot at it.  That rat was snorting coke or drank some energy drinks at a dumpster! 

[airgunaut]

Related to Meth Mouse? A term I learned right here in the vault of weird knowledge. The modern Speedy Gonzales.

[Moke]

Rat Meth?
thats for the city rats.

I've gotten mine all strung out on Rat Crack - Sunflower seeds from the bulk rack at Winco Foods.
Birders know of this addiction, and, say Sunflower seeds are, in fact, addictive to birds; and it seems, Rats.

I've been watching this dude for a few weeks.  He is just hyper fast, in and out of the gallery. I know its the same Rat, based on repeated actions.
Here is another video from two nights ago. At around 46 or 47 seconds into the video, you can see the Rat enter the gallery from above.
From above?
I have welded wire fencing around the gallery, as Cat fencing, to keep my cat from hassling the birds that Sarge feeds. The fence forces her to enter from the front, which sends the birds off quickly. Or, she has to jump over the fence, which also sends the birds off quickly.
The Rats have used the fence as a tight rope walk along the top of the fence, across the top of the backstop.  They then evacuate, except for this one Rat, who tries to jump back up to the top of the backstop.  You can see that jumping action in the first video, and now this one.

Rat enters high, and, from the left, at around :46 seconds:


Sorry for the long video. I'm trying to figure out video editing (I'm an audio recordist and editor and this video thing is brand new to me)

[WhatUPSbox?]

The video comes up as private.
I've been using HandBrake (free) for simple video trim/crop and brightness/contrast

[Moke]

thanks for trying, and alerting.
And thanks for the editing link.

I tried checking to see what might have happened, and it came up with a missing check box that I missed?.

Here we go, trying again:

Night Rats - Night Two @ :46 seconds

[Moke]

Well now,.... its been a while since I got anything interesting enough to mention,.... Then, it all came in a rush. It must be springtime or something?!?

First up from earlier in the week is a mouse that I sniped in my generator shed. note the mouse baby "pinkies" in nest, and one under momma mouse:



And, then, my cat, Kitty, got in on the act this morning with a huge fat pregnant Rat that she dragged to the rear patio door. A baby rat is still not all the way born yet:



These rodents shared a similarity: Pregnant

The mouse that I got, I popped it with my Beeman P17 pistol, and a standard pellet.

And, keeping in touch with how its all done:

[WhatUPSbox?]

Nice work.
There's definitely a new batch of spring rodents out there. Our 15 year old cat brought home a young rat the other day, which is pretty good since she is only allowed out during the day.

[Moke]

Hi Stan,

I am also in north SD county, in the Rainbow Creek watershed drainage area, near Fallbrook (far closer to Rainbow than Fbk.).

Kitty came to us from the wild edge, a neighbors property of quite a few acres (15+ acres).  She was living amongst the coyotes for a few years before we took her in.  She is now an outdoor cat from perhaps 6:30am (first safe light of morning), up until around noon'ish.  From then til the next mornings release, she stays inside with us.  It is quite like she wears a watch, for how tight her timing is, each day.

[WhatUPSbox?]

We are in coastal suburbia, but with all the greenbelts under the power lines, etc. I have trailcam photos of bobcat and coyote in our fenced back yard.

[Sqrl Klr]

Pretty snek u got there Moke.