What killed the rat?

littlebug

Rat which looked freshly killed with a hole in it's abdomen about 1 inch in diameter with some of it's insides been poked at/ out. I had seen a flash of something pale/ cream/ light brown coloured move from the road where the rat was up into the hedge just before I got to that point. I only got a split second glimpse of colour which wasn't even enough to discern shape or even whether it was mammal or bird but it was fairly big. My first thought was hare due to the colour and size... until i saw the rat. If it was a bird then if wings were stretched out to enable jump up into hedge than that could have increased size perception.

It was about 1/4 mile from the turlough. There are some conifers in the general vicinity but I wouldn't call it wooded. That particular stretch of road just had low hedges.
I accept there may be no definitive answer from this but I'm just curious as to what others on here suggest .

Stoat? From your size description it couldn't be a stoat though. Maybe a pine marten? Around the size of a domestic cat?

Kess73

Could be any number of ways in which Ratty met it's end.

Could have been hit a glancing blow and the body was being scavenged by the animal you saw.

It could have died of natural causes and was being scavenged.

Could have been killed by the animal you saw and it was just about to enjoy the spoils of it's kill before you surfaced.


As for what was eating it, that is difficult to guess at as well.

You did mention brown/cream/light brown as the colours you saw, and I have seen female sprawks kills and them feed on rats, so a female sprawk would tick the colour and size boxes, and she would have the speed to take off and leave you just registering movement and a flash of colour. The last time I saw a female sprawk catch and kill a rat was from a distance of about 12 to 15 feet from me, and the sprawk hit the rat hard from above and basically kneaded the remaining life from the rat with her talons. She did start feeding from the underbelly of the rat first which might tie in with the wound you saw on the rat.


Something like a mink or stoat would easily kill a rat as well, but you would probably have to think of something like a pine martin if what you saw was a lot bigger than the rat..

littlebug

Deleted User wrote: »

. Maybe a pine marten? Around the size of a domestic cat?

I was hoping someone would say pine marten Would that type of wound be consistent with pine marten ?

Kess73 wrote: »

Could have been hit a glancing blow and the body was being scavenged by the animal you saw.

It could have died of natural causes and was being scavenged.

Could have been killed by the animal you saw and it was just about to enjoy the spoils of it's kill before you surfaced.

Yup... could have been any of these but it looked so recently killed that my assumption was that it was the third. It was on a little boithrin and thus within the tyre track though no cars had been on that road in the 15/20 mins I was on it.

As for what was eating it, that is difficult to guess at as well.

A vague description I know.... I was running and wearing glasses so vision gets a bit wobbly I did wonder about sparrowhawk given the wound. When you say take off do you mean fly off.... whatever it was went into the hedge and stayed there though I couldn't see it. I waited further up the road to see would it come out again but no:(.. probably as soon as I turned the corner :rolleyes:

The whole scenario had me thinking pine marten or sparrowhawk so happy to have others suggest the same. As possibilities how different could they be Goddam my eyesight :mad: but it's given me a little bit of intrigue for the day.