Brown Rat

Description:

Brown furred rodent, some 25cm in length, with a long naked tail and round ears.

Habitat:

Mediterranean garden in urban setting, coastal Croatia.

Notes:

Seen feeding on rotting fruit of one of older varieties of Cherry-plum, (Prunus cerasifera). Unfortunately, the fruit of this tree is not very appreciated, except for making some low-quality booze, so many people don't bother to collect it... The tree in this story belongs to our neighbour, who never harvest it nor use the fruit; so the floor of the entrance to our garden and the adjacent alley are always completely covered by rotting and fermenting fruit (yep! that corner of the garden always smells of spilt booze...) attracting loads of unwanted visitors - wasps, flies, chaffers, rats... Of course, there are some birds and butterflies as well. This year I experimented with some of the fruit remaining on the tree... I harvested it, and processed (that's a load of labour - very little pulp, for a lot of stone and skin); and managed to produce a home-made fruit sirop, jelly and jam; so the next year we may solve the problem...