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really peculiar behaviour stoned or what  Rate Topic 
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Posted by blackfox: Fri Jul 20th, 2012 12:39 1st Post
got a series of pictures today of a brown rat at my local reserve ,it was collecting stones from beneath the bird feeder and taking them away two or three at a time ,never seen anything like it before and got no valid reason for its behaviour i just sat and watched mouth open for around three hours .???







Posted by jk: Fri Jul 20th, 2012 13:50 2nd Post
Great pictures.


Maybe he is building a catapult to launch stones at birds who steal his/her food. :lol:



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Posted by Squarerigger: Fri Jul 20th, 2012 15:41 3rd Post
Nice photos. Can you give some info about the shot, i.e. tripod, distance from subject (hopefully out of stones throw), lens, etc.



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Posted by blackfox: Fri Jul 20th, 2012 16:05 4th Post
Squarerigger wrote:
Nice photos. Can you give some info about the shot, i.e. tripod, distance from subject (hopefully out of stones throw), lens, etc.
yep no problem at all ,
camera D7000
lens 300mm-f4 + 1.7 t.c giving 500mm focal length
iso 1000
f8
1/800th sec
spot metering
all shots hand held i rarely use a support being one big gentleman as robert can confirm LOL
distance from subject 5.6 mtrs or 18 feet



Posted by Squarerigger: Fri Jul 20th, 2012 16:34 5th Post
blackfox wrote:
Squarerigger wrote:
Nice photos. Can you give some info about the shot, i.e. tripod, distance from subject (hopefully out of stones throw), lens, etc.
yep no problem at all ,
camera D7000
lens 300mm-f4 + 1.7 t.c giving 500mm focal length
iso 1000
f8
1/800th sec
spot metering
all shots hand held i rarely use a support being one big gentleman as robert can confirm LOL
distance from subject 5.6 mtrs or 18 feet

Thank you. Nice combination of camera and lens.



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Gary


Posted by Eric: Fri Jul 20th, 2012 18:29 6th Post
blackfox wrote:
got a series of pictures today of a brown rat at my local reserve ,it was collecting stones from beneath the bird feeder and taking them away two or three at a time ,never seen anything like it before and got no valid reason for its behaviour i just sat and watched mouth open for around three hours .???







Rats are very intelligent. I've seen them use crude tools to get at food.
But I've never seen that before! Amazing ...and nice shots!

I assume it was wanting the stones to either cover something or support something. Would be fascinating to find out what it was up to.



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Eric


Posted by Eric: Fri Jul 20th, 2012 18:36 7th Post
It's catching....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa88vSgNfzw&feature=youtube_gdata_player



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Eric


Posted by jk: Sat Jul 21st, 2012 02:48 8th Post
Yes they are very intelligent and they bite!!!
Personally I cant stand the smell of rats and mice (comes from working with them in the labs) so I dont really like them but they are not dirty creatures except when they live in dirty places.



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Posted by steve of oxford: Sat Jul 21st, 2012 04:47 9th Post
I think I have the answer to this:

From the way the rat is holding the stones, I'd say it thinks it's moving babies around.



Posted by Squarerigger: Sat Jul 21st, 2012 08:04 10th Post
Great find Eric.

I did some searching and found these critters sometimes do use stones for making nests. Also, it seems some species of these gather up objects and on the way to where they want to use them, they find something they like better and switch out objects and forget about the first item they had.



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Gary


Posted by Eric: Sat Jul 21st, 2012 09:21 11th Post
Squarerigger wrote:
Great find Eric.

I did some searching and found these critters sometimes do use stones for making nests. Also, it seems some species of these gather up objects and on the way to where they want to use them, they find something they like better and switch out objects and forget about the first item they had.

Sounds like the wife shopping.



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Eric


Posted by KenRay: Sat Jul 21st, 2012 11:29 12th Post
Here in southern Arizona we ahve a rat known as the 'Pack' Rat probably because he will 'pack' anything into his nest. I have a particular hate against this species. They also have a nasty habit of building their nests in autos ,in the engine compartment usually. In addition the seem to like the taste of any covering of electric wires. They can build theses nests in literally a matter of hours. My personal hate is because in my case he decided to build his nest on top of the transmission of my 2006 Mustang ( prized possesion) and prceded to chew in two some of the wires there. First cost was $600 to splice 2 wires after finding a mechanic with small hands . Second occurance cost another $600 to repair what I feel was a wire the first mechanic missed. Last cost was $1200 to repar more wires that were probably missed in the first two repairs. This time they dropped the transmission to do the job correctly (maybe). Have no idea how to stop the infestations. Some say a light in area will discourage them,others say a bar of Irish Spring soap will discourage them, others an electronic noise device. I have instituted the Irish Spring solution and the electronic device and have hopes they will discourage further destruction. So I kinda hate Rats for economic reasons especially the 'Pack' type.



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Posted by Iain: Sun Jul 22nd, 2012 04:32 13th Post
Rats will sometimes use stones to form a base for there nests.



Posted by jk: Sun Jul 22nd, 2012 05:37 14th Post
KenRay wrote: Here in southern Arizona we ahve a rat known as the 'Pack' Rat probably because he will 'pack' anything into his nest. I have a particular hate against this species. They also have a nasty habit of building their nests in autos ,in the engine compartment usually. In addition the seem to like the taste of any covering of electric wires. They can build theses nests in literally a matter of hours. My personal hate is because in my case he decided to build his nest on top of the transmission of my 2006 Mustang ( prized possesion) and prceded to chew in two some of the wires there. First cost was $600 to splice 2 wires after finding a mechanic with small hands . Second occurance cost another $600 to repair what I feel was a wire the first mechanic missed. Last cost was $1200 to repar more wires that were probably missed in the first two repairs. This time they dropped the transmission to do the job correctly (maybe). Have no idea how to stop the infestations. Some say a light in area will discourage them,others say a bar of Irish Spring soap will discourage them, others an electronic noise device. I have instituted the Irish Spring solution and the electronic device and have hopes they will discourage further destruction. So I kinda hate Rats for economic reasons especially the 'Pack' type.Ken,
Understand your problem.

There is a similar problem in Germany that one of my friends told me about.

The 'cure' is to seal the underside of the car engine bay with chicken wire so they cant get in.
Of course you need to make sure that there is airflow so that the engine doesnt lose the additional cooling otherwise a solid plate would work better.



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