The Giant Rat of Rusper

I have fallen in love.

The object of my desire is a 12 acre woodland, 3 miles west of Gatwick, just outside the picturesque West Sussex village of Rusper.

She is beautiful. I saw her on January 1st 2021 and made an offer that afternoon. Three weeks ago she finally became mine. The woodland is on the southern border of a much larger ancient broadleaf woodland, and contains a glorious mix of oaks, birches and hornbeam, all surrounded by a deep carpet of bluebells. There is a powerline running across it which provides a wonderful east-west opening in which rare orchids grow and wildlife surely abounds.

It is no exaggeration to say that this woodland occupies my every waking moment (and most of my sleeping ones). Our plan is to create a mini wildlife reserve, working from the soil invertebrates upwards. We have identified 14 habitats we want to nurture, including a wildflower meadow, properly-thick hedgerows and standing deadwood (one of the rarest yet most important habitats for woodland birds and beetles). We are writing a formal 300 year Woodland Management Plan which we will submit to the appropriate authorities. My intention is to be the ‘custodian’ for the first few decades, before handing it on to others to manage and preserve.

Since our key aim with the woodland is to enhance the flora and fauna it is necessary to gather data regarding the initial ecological baseline. We have initiated a number of surveys. The West Sussex Bat Society has even agreed to do a detailed bat tagging survey in early May. After some gentle begging they have agreed to let me come along. I have no idea what it will involve, or whether we will find anything (how do you even catch a bat?). It will involve staying up until 3am on a school night (a Thursday), but I can’t wait. Friday 7th May will simply have to be a day when I keep my work diary just a little bit lighter than usual.

We bought (off eBay) a small 1980s caravan. Through some quirk of fate I had never set foot in a caravan until it arrived on our driveway. How can I have missed the excitement of caravans? My wife regarded me with a curious mix of pity, humour and disappointment as I enthusiastically shared every discovery I made of each new ingenious cupboard and hidey-hole. We towed it into the centre of the woodland, painted it grey, covered it with camouflage netting and installed a photovoltaic power supply*. We positioned it such that the view was deep into the woodland, with a badger set just 30m away.

A couple of weeks ago, after a long Saturday ‘woodlanding’ (that should definitely become a new verb!) I shut myself in the caravan at 5pm and settled down to my first serious session of wildlife watching. With the caravan door shut (badgers have a very strong sense of smell) I sat motionless scanning the view. As the temperature dropped my hands froze around my binoculars. My stomach rumbled but I wasn’t going to risk moving or making a noise. Also I was certain that there were numerous animals just beyond my eye-line who were deliberately waiting for me to turn my back so they could come and dance in front of the caravan while I wasn’t looking.

Three hours passed and not one creature of interest appeared. No badgers. No deer. No unicorns. Not even a sodding squirrel. Once the light had finally faded and my eyes were straining to see even a few yards I finally gave up. It was only 830pm but it was a cold early April night and I snuggled into my sleeping bag and lay looking out into the dark, apparently animal-free, woodland. Within minutes there was a loud hoot, followed by an answering call, and then a screech. Suddenly the woodland was alive with a growing glorious cacophony of woodland galumphing and owl calls (or potentially murder victims, it is a little hard to tell the difference). I woke at 430am feeling at more at one with the world than I have done for years. The woodland creatures were definitely present. They were just shy, that was all.

I bought a ￡25 motion-activated camera and installed it just in front of the badger set. Upon detecting movement it would take a photo, wait a second and then take 4 seconds of video. I left it 5 days and then downloaded the files. I had 44 different photos and videos (ie 88 in total). I was super excited to finally see my resident badgers frolicking in their natural habitat. Perhaps they would already have young? I opened the first file…

Forty of the 44 videos were of a squirrel. I swear that he had worked out where the camera was and deliberately performed. It was like watching Scrat from Ice Age. He posed for each individual shot (‘I am ready for my close up Mr DeMille’). Video number 41 was of a fat, indulgent pigeon walking (not flying!) across the woodland floor. Shot number 42 was a fox being foxy in the middle of the night, slinking between the trees. No 43 was a rather beautiful Roe Deer which walked directly in front of the camera.

 Finally I came to video number 44. It was taken at 3am on the night a couple of weeks ago when southern England was blanketed with snow. According to the camera sensor it was minus 3 degC. An animal – whatever it was - came out of the badger set, and the camera snapped. By the time the video kicked in a second later the creature was already disappearing back into the set, with just some faint movements visible on the video. What is clear however is that it is not a badger. It is a mystery creature. Some people have said it is a rat. If it is, then it’s the biggest rat in England...

 I have now repositioned the camera directly outside the entrance hole and re-programmed the camera to record video only. This is an ecology mystery that needs solving.

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* The caravan now serves as my new office. Last week I did a number of zoom calls while sitting at a desk in the middle of the woodland. (‘Piers, I love that background screen, it looks so realistic….but could you turn off the distracting background bird noises?’).