Stuck Rat

Tree rats are part of life in a rural area.  They have cost me hundreds of dollars in damage to my cars, since they love eating the tubing and enjoy the warmth inside for nesting.  However they have their place… just not in my stuff.  So when I looked out the window this morning while eating breakfast and saw a very un-birdlike creature in the hanging bird feeder, I had to go outside and see if it really was what I thought it was.  Already the temperature was over 90 degrees in this heat wave, and it was only about 8 am.

Rats don’t like the sun, being nocturnal, and the way this youngster was just hanging over the edge made me think he was ill.  Then I thought that he looked as if he was stuck.  I took a shovel and put the end up under his head, and he stirred, then gracefully stepped down on it and jumped off into the columbine.  I think he was just a kid who had a bad case of the Where Am I?’s.  I told him not to go into my cars.  He did pose in a very picture-book fashion, becoming the most adorable rat I’ve ever seen.