First thing up ... the rat is dead. We had this rat, which used to swing on the bird feeder outside the kitchen window. I suspect it had come from the farm just up the road, as we have never had rats, at least, not long-lived rats, previously.
It
would suddenly appear just outside the window and, bar trying to shoot it through the glass, it was going to have to be either stalked or trapped. The traps in the loft above the kitchen where it may have lived, or which it simply used as a pied a terre on its forages from the farm, proved useless.
And, as previously recorded, two attempts at shooting it had failed – once at four yards with a 12 bore. My eyesight is so wonky that it was either too close or the effort of creeping around the side of the house unsteadied both hand and eye.
A shot with the old BSA .22 Meteor air rifle over open sights was similarly unsuccessful as the fore sight and the back sight neatly blended with the grey of the rat, the grey of the house behind it, and the grey of the day.
Thus did I acquire a new £5 telescopic sight made in China. I had it zeroed for accuracy by one of the daughter's many swains, who went off into the garden and came back completely frozen, 200 pellets and an hour later, to announce that it was "pretty well spot on. I think." Thereafter we had to wait for the return of the rat. From time to time my wife, who by now was in danger of becoming almost fond of its familiar little face at the window, would shout from the kitchen: "It's back!" and I would creep around the house to find it had gone.
Then one day she said: "Why don't you just go out the front door instead of all that farting about round the back, which obviously isn't working?"
So at the next shout of "It's back!" I crept upright, if such a thing is possible, across the gravel with the rifle and sight raised to my eye, rather like an SAS man doing a house clearance, until it came into my sights.
The beast had its back to me as it nibbled away and, though I say it myself, it was a reasonable shot at 33ft (paced out later), particularly as it was taken standing, without the benefit of a rest or support.
It is perhaps a little too esoteric to compare taking a pot shot at a rat on a bird feeder to casting the perfect line for a fish. But, like a good cast, the shot benefited from the fact that the mind was at that moment perfectly focused – cleared of all other rubbish rumbling about in there.
There was no time to try and draw a perfect bead on the target. And as we know, or I know, the harder you think about taking a shot or casting a line, the less likely you are to manage either with much accuracy.
That was it with the rat. No time to think or waver – just do it, now. Bang. Or rather, "Kerlank" in the case of the air rifle.
There followed, I am afraid, a bit of thrashing about in the undergrowth to finish it off. But that's just the way of it, as they say. The problem, as sage folk gleefully like to point out, is that where there is one rat there is almost certainly another.
The full article contains 608 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
