The cat and the rat

Every 7 years we have a rat plague due to the Beech trees flowering.  And this year is the seventh year and the beech trees are flowering beautifully.  So we are at the moment having endless problems with these terrible rodents invading earth!  We have heard of rats overnight chewing wires in tractors/vehicles, causing a huge amount of damage and expense to get the vehicles going again.

Every morning we have at least one rat left at our back door, having been caught during the night by one of our cats.  These rats are always dead, but are in many forms of disrepair e.g. headless, body-less (with only the tail as proof) etc.

I found this rat on the grass this morning - very subdued, obviously on the way out after eating some rat bait.  While I got my camera, Smudge our cat decided he would go and investigate - hence this photo of 'the cat and the rat'.   They both look like they could very well be friends.

Smudge walked away after a few minutes.  Cats must know when rats have eaten poison - they must be able to sense it, thank goodness!

It has been a much cooler day today.  With the hot temperatures that we have been having over the past week, we are hoping that it will rain overnight.