My Humble Origins: Episode I - The Rodent Menace

Let me start off by wishing a Merry Christmas to all. Like a gift from ol' Saint Nick, things have been wonderfully quiet in the back yard. So for this post, I thought I'd reminisce about how my air gun pest control adventures all started. Please bear with me as I wax nostalgic for a post or two.

Now clear your mind as I set the Way Back Machine. Our next stop is the Summer of 2005...
War raged on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here in America, Intelligent Design (which, ironically, evolved from Creationism) was creeping into public schools and grabbing headlines. Meanwhile, in metroplexes across the country, whiny Anakin Skywalker was improbably transforming into James Earl Jones.


Darth Crybaby

That summer found my wife and I in a new house in the California Bay Area having recently moved from New York. We had been amateur birders in Manhattan's Central Park, so we were interested in getting to know the variety of birds around our new home. To that end I had placed a bird feeder in the cherry-plum tree at the back of the yard and the wife and I enjoyed watching the goldfinches, chickadees, wrentits and the occasional woodpecker that came to partake. Gone were the hectic days of NYC, the crowds of shoving people, the hot, humid subways. The West Coast days were long, warm and golden. Life was good.

But the halcyon days were soon to be disturbed. One afternoon I was horrified to see a large rat -- like some refugee from the tracks of the C train -- running out from the ivy at the back of the yard and helping herself to the birdseed that had fallen from the feeder. Ugh. I was happy to keep the neighborhood and migrating birds fat and happy, but I'd be damned if I was going to nourish a generation of rats around my home. This demanded action.


Rattus norvegicus

In addition to being big, the rat (later determined to be a Norway rat) was as bold as could be. She would come out in broad daylight, sometimes accompanied by a smaller companion. She seemed perfectly comfortable to be out even when my wife and I were 15 yards away. She'd come loping out, hugging the side of this 4 inch high wooden rail which marked where the original owners' vegetable garden had once grown. She would then camp out next to the rail directly under the bird feeder and help herself to what seeds the birds knocked down. Occasionally she'd hop over the rail to gather whatever morsels had fallen on that side before shuffling back into the ivy. She did this off and on for 20 minutes.

The cherry-plum tree, feeders and wooden rail


So I marched into the house, went into the closet and got out my thoroughly beat up Crosman BB gun. I pumped it 10 times (the max you are supposed to pump it) and sat about 20 yards away waiting for the rat to return. When she did, I lined her up as best I could. The gun's rear sight was broken, but from some target practice I'd done, I had a fair idea of where the BBs were going. My heart beating a mile a minute, I let fly the BB. I watched it travel downrange and smack the rat in the ribcage. It's never a good sign when your projectile is moving slowly enough that you can watch it fly, but she jumped up about a foot in the air and immediately scampered into the ivy at the back of the yard.

My $5 garage sale special
Now my heart was red-lining. I wasn't sure if my shot was lethal, but I felt certain the rat had been sufficiently persuaded to avoid the birdseed in the future. I remember feeling a mixture of exhilaration and guilt (was it dying or suffering?).
Five minutes later I added 'disappointment' to the list when I saw the rat come right back out there again. So much for the persuasive power of my tired old BB gun.

Now I was really pissed off. I muttered a few choice words at the rat, and saved a few for the gun as well. But I figured that if I could close the distance, I could increase the oomph on my shot. So I crept over to another part of the yard where I could get a closer shot from a better angle. This time I pumped the crummy gun up to 12, and at the next opportunity took another shot. Exact same results. It was at this point that I had my Chief Brody revelation.


We're gonna need a bigger boat






Stay tuned for part two of the saga in which we will see how a moron with a piece of junk, garage-sale BB gun began to transform himself into a passable air-gunner...

The Wide World of Wratting

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports... the thrill of victory...



and the agony of defeat...

It's been a little slow in the back yard lately, so my Jim McKay intro is simply a way to say that in this entry I'll be bringing you some of the rat control happenings from the larger world.

Folks, I have a real treat for you today. I found the video below on YouTube and just had to point to it. This is some incredible footage of high-octane ratting. This makes my backyard adventures look like an evening spent at the library. Now let's send it down to Howard Cosell for the tale of the tape...

The shooter in the video is using an Air Arms s410K Pre-charged Pneumatic (PCP) which uses a 10-shot rotary magazine and has variable power that can push .22 caliber pellets out of the muzzle at over 900 feet/second. That's around 30 foot-pounds of muzzle energy! And from the look of things it must be whisper quiet - not one rat appears to get spooked. He also has a Yukon Digital Night Vision Ranger 5x42 scope which he has somehow affixed to the back of his normal rifle scope. He is using an output from the Ranger into some recording device to capture the video. And he's set the whole thing to Killswitch Engage's cover of Dio's Holy Diver. You gotta love it!

Be forewarned - this video is graphic and not for the faint of heart



Wow. The kill at 2:40 alone is worth the price of admission -- the bindi dot shot to the grape that anchors the rat on the spot, his tail shooting out stiff before going limp and the half-beat pause before the blood spills out and down onto the sack he's resting on. That's just pure poetry.

But there is a lot here to be proud of - not least of which, a damned accurate rifle. That's about a thousand dollars worth of fine English-made air rifle, never mind the scope, the digital night vision and the rest of the A/V assemblage. On top of everything else, he has a seemingly unlimited supply of Norway rats. I've never seen anything like it outside a horror flick. I sincerely hope this isn't anywhere near a human habitation. And there are several more posts from this guy on YouTube, so feel free to explore.


The Air Arms s410 rifle in walnut (top) and beech (bottom) stock


A closer look at the 10-shot magazine in the loading port

I have asked the guy if he can post video or images of his gun/scope/night vision set up so I can better understand how he connects everything. I'll let you know if he does so.

The Yukon Digital Ranger 5x42 Night Vision Scope

The latest toy I'll covet but never actually own

Trench Warfare

Fall is here in all its glory. Autumn near the northern California coast is nothing like what we used to have in the Northeast, but it is very pleasant just the same. October is usually a month where we enjoy an extended Indian Summer. This year has been no exception.

But about a month ago, I was unpleasantly surprised to find a series of conical mounds rising out of the lawn in the back yard. In fact, I actually watched some of them being raised. The dirt would be pushed out in a little core from the center of the mound, like an erupting volcano, then fall off to add more dirt to the rising sides. Some research online told me that it was the tell-tale sign of a mole. So each day, I would take a shovel out and redistribute the dirt to other needy areas of the yard. Then usually by the next day, there would be more dirt there or at a new location.

I wanted to stop the mole before he ruined the lawn


I camped out one night early on with my rifle and a flashlight casting red-tinted light over the active mound. At one point, I saw a subtly moving silhouette at the top of the mound, raised my rifle and centered it in my scope. In the darkness, it was hard to see what exactly the creature was. Just before I took the shot, I realized that it was actually just a large clump of dirt standing vertically as it was being pushed up out of the ground. That's when I did more research and realized that moles seldom go above ground. I knew that my rifle would not be the likely solution.

So one afternoon I was out back, taking a break from some wood chopping I had been doing when I saw the dirt being pushed up out of a nearly flat spot in the grass. So I swiftly grabbed the axe, strode to the spot and with a hefty swing, buried the entire head of the axe deep under the surface of the grass. There was no blood on it when I pulled it out, and the chances that I would have happened to strike the mole were one in a thousand. What I do know is that the mole activity only occurred once more after that, and hasn't resumed since. Go figure.

If I could have gotten this view, I'd have definitely killed him


Then yesterday, I saw new digging at a different spot in the yard. Under the tree where I place my bird feeders at the back of the yard I saw a little hole, flush with the ground, and some fresh dirt spread around it. I didn't know what had made it, but I knew it was not a mole. I went outside late last night to see if I could spot the culprit with my binoculars and the flashlight, but had no luck.

He couldn't have picked a less fortunate spot - right under the shooting tree!


Then this morning, as I watched a bunch of sparrows out enjoying some seeds on the ground, I saw that there was fresh dirt out there. So I walked out to get a closer look. The birds all flew away at my approach, but sure enough, there in the hole was a little brown furry head poking out! It definitely wasn't a mole, but I couldn't tell if it was a gopher or a vole. As quick and as low to the ground as I could, I slunk back into the house to get my rifle.

I loaded it with a .20 Field Target Special (FTS), snuck out and sat myself in one of the patio chairs about 15 yards away. I went with the FTS instead of the Crow Magnum this time because I felt I could pinpoint the shot a little more reliably with it. I thought that level of precision might be needed on a small target that was quickly darting in and out of his hole. I placed my left elbow on the arm of the chair to brace and steady the rifle, and brought the opening of the hole into scope view. Once the birds came back and were again enjoying seeds all around the hole, I watched the rodent pop his head back out. He did this several times, coming out and pushing a little dirt onto the growing pile at the back of the hole. The next time he came out, he turned to the right, giving me a profile of his little head. It wasn't a clear shot, there was intervening grass that slightly obscured him, but I could tell where his head was. He paused just long enough and I squeezed the trigger.

The birds all scattered, and there was no sign of anything above ground. I walked over and there he was. He had dropped himself back down into the hole but his head was plain to be seen. And he was as dead as can be.

Taking a dirt nap


I used a couple of sticks as forceps and pulled the little digger out of his hole. An investigation revealed that the pellet had gone in right behind his ear...



...and had come out opposite at his cheek. The Beeman Field Target Special does not mess around. That pellet could not have flown any more true.


A case of terminal lead poisoning

Having never seen one up close, I was uncertain, but believed it was a gopher rather than a vole. From my previous research online, I knew that voles were much more mouse-like in appearance than this little guy was. After disposing of him, a quick online search proved that this was indeed a pocket gopher, most likely the Botta's Pocket Gopher (Thomomys bottae) which is the common variety in California.

After the frustration of the mole debacle, it was satisfying indeed to have dispatched this little varmint before any major damage could be done to the lawn or the tree.


In the words of the immortal Carl Spackler, "Au revoir, gopher"