There is a saying – widely regarded as an urban myth – that ‘in a city you are never more than ten feet from a rat’. Well, myth or not, in Newcastle this afternoon we were within less than ten feet of about twenty rats that were scampering over a triangle of grass near a pub, feeding on the lunchtime debris left in the grass around the picnic benches. The brown rat Rattus norvegicus is arguably second only to Homo sapiens as the world’s most successful urban mammal. We sat and watched them scampering around for about ten minutes, but unfortunately I only had a small pocket camera with me, so the pictures are not very good, but at least you can get some idea of the company we’ve been keeping today! While we were watching, as well as eating food scraps the rats were also eating grass and grass seeds, but never once attempted to nibble the scores of cigarette ends strewn around the benches – not a single smoker amongst any of them. Mostly they didn't take much notice of our presence, although they scampered back under the laurel hedge if we made any sudden movements.
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