Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Packrat

I opened my garage door just as this critter was climbing across one of the cross pieces on the inside.  Technically, it's a bushy-tailed woodrat, but it will be forever known as the packrat.

It tried to use the old Jurassic Park trick--"He can't see me if I don't move."

According to one field guide, the bushy tail makes it more squirrel-like than ratlike, but I think that's just part of its PR campaign.  While squirrels and rats are both in the order Rodentia, the packrat is a member of the mouse family, and that's a dysfunctional family, especially when they leave the fields and try to come inside.

Still motionless as I started to close the door.

"He still can't see me, so he doesn't know I'm upside-down and look ridiculous."

At this point it was really stuck, so I pushed on the outer part of the door with a shovel handle to give it a little wiggle room, and it righted itself.  Then the FedEx man showed up and distracted me, and the rat made its escape while I was outside.

6 comments:

  1. i had a mouse try the 'i'll hide in his shoe in the garage so when he gets up early to go fishing he'll have a heart attack' trick and...it worked...right up until the time he dropped out of the shoe and i used my other shoe to put an end to the trick. good thing it was early so no one heard me yell like that...embarrassing.

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  2. That would be tough going out there early, not fully awake yet, and finding something alive in your shoe. It could break down into a Three Stooges routine pretty quick.

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  3. Some of us country girls know to ALWAYS shake out an outside shoe! Critters like shoes! I guess any person showing up in your neck of the woods would be a distraction!

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  4. i don't disagree with that advice, ironically my normal routine is to pick them up, bang them together and go from there. that morning, maybe it was a bit too early, i just stepped into them, took a couple steps and my shoe squeaked. hmmm shoes not supposed to do that so i took it off and as i lifted it up...out he comes. i was fully awake from then on.

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  5. Elmer Fudd: So, I'm a big, fat wat!
    Bugs Bunny: Yeah, have some cheese, rat! (shoves a wedge of cheese in Elmer's mouth)

    Think it could amicably play out something like that? So much gentler than chemicals.

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  6. As always, wonderful photos, Cliff! I can't believe I am enjoying photos of a packrat! And you know, once you call him a bushy-tailed woodrat, he actually starts to look kind of cute. Then again, he's not in *my* house, so I can relax.

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