I regard rats as no different from all the other fascinating species of wildlife.
It seems odd to me that we love squirrels so dearly (well, red ones anyway) but despise rats.
It is also supremely ironic that our love for birds should result in a population boom of these "vermin".
This was made obvious this afternoon as I filmed this little rat feasting on a pile of bird seed put bedside the path.
In this second video I set the camera to 60 frames per second so that it plays back at half normal speed.
This allows you to see the delicate feeding movements more clearly.
I was able to get remarkably close to this lovely little animal, but you'll notice that its eyes are nearly always obscured by foliage.
It's as if the rat thought it was hiding as long as it couldn't see me clearly!