A Tale of Two Species

During our pre-hike confab at Chimney Rock this week Susan Pearson reported on her recent visit to Pinnacles National Monument where she had hoped to see nesting California Condors.  Unfortunately, the birds had at least temporarily flown the coop.

After the hike Dick Jordan returned home to find his wife’s car gone from the driveway and the house empty.  File folders and papers were scattered on the dining room table and there was no note indicating where Cindy might have flown off to.  When Dick reached her by cell phone she said “Call you back.  Doing “Rat Rescue” and hung up.

As it turns out, Cindy had gone out the front door early in the afternoon and found a  woozy rat wobbling around in the driveway.  On the advice of her friend, Megan, who runs Rancho Raccoon (which rescues wayward masked critters), she scooped Mr. Rat into a cardboard box and drove him down to Wildcare in San Rafael.
Wildcare determined that Mr. Rat (now known as Rat #305) had probably been bonked on the head (either during rat vs. rat sparring, being hit by a bicycle or car, or in a fall to the ground while attempting to walk tightrope-style across a telephone or electrical line).  By Friday morning he had recovered enough to be released back into the wild, so Cindy and Dick retrieved him from “Rat Rehab.”

Rat #305 made the trip back to San Anselmo in a wooden “crate” made specially for small critter transport and release by a Wildcare volunteer.  Unlike Dick and Cindy’s cat, Mr. Rat did not howl during the road trip home.

When he arrived at the creek near Landsdale Station, Number 305 was all wound up in his bed-clothes and could not get out through the small hole in the front of the box.  But when Cindy flipped up the lid on the top of the box he shot like a rocket into the brambles, glad to be back in his native habitat.

(Unfortunately, due to “operator error” the video of Rat #305’s release stopped before he made his mad dash to freedom.  However, you can see Cindy carrying him toward the creek in his little box in this YouTube video).