Brown Rat (Rattus norvegicus)

I took a couple of hours out in the hope of finding some water voles on the banks of the stream that snakes its way along the North Norfolk coast between Cley and Salthouse. None showed their face, but I did spot a tell-tale slipway carved into the muddy banks by repeated use by something small. I made myself comfortable a short distance away and waited, passing the time by shooting black-headed gulls and jackdaws (those posts to follow later). Patience is not one of my virtues, but after an hour or so I was rewarded with the sight of something moving in the tufts of grass sprouting from the bank. I locked on the camera and was lucky enough to capture an adult brown rat sniffing the air to see if it was safe to venture out with her infant offspring. If you scroll down, you'll see that in the second image I've enlarged the scene to focus on this very cute pair. From that point, I was able to track which runs the rats were using to navigate the banks and later got some decent shots of another adult on the other side of the stream (again, look for future posts).