The rats are invading! Their numbers have been increasing lately, more and more have been coming to feed on the bird food. They can give birth to 7 youngsters every 21 days and can carry a number of diseases - so they are not welcome in the garden! They could be poisoned, but as there are other animals, pets and children in the garden, this isn't the best option to control their numbers. Shooting is the best and most humane way of keeping the numbers down. All shots were taken at about 14 yards, from a window overlooking the garden. For my rifle this is 1 mil-dot high. All of the shots were taken over a number of days, whenever we spied one that came for a visit. *1 You'll notice in this shot my crosshairs aren't following the rat's head. A good tip when you're trying to shoot something that's constantly moving its head while feeding, is to settle your crosshairs on where its head is in the relaxed position when they're chewing whatever it is they've picked up. This is what I was doing with the rat. I waited for him to move back to his sitting position after he pulled off a chunk. That way, you're not constantly following his head around and the second he moves his head back to chew, I'm there ready to shoot, instead of having to move the crosshairs and re-settle (the 1-2 seconds it takes to do that he'd probably have moved again for another bite.) *2 I followed this guy around for ages as he dashed out, loaded up his mouth with bread, then dashed back into the hedge. You ...