This afternoon I was sitting on the back porch and heard a ruckus in the yard.  So I crept outside and found a cat prowling under where where I’d been sitting and a squirrel chirping at it from the fence.  Assuming this was the kerfuffle, I shooed them both off and went back to my book. Five minutes later, the noises we’re back, so I went back out but the cat and squirrel were nowhere to be found.  Confused, I stood by the place I thought the boise was coming from. 

I only had to wait a minute or two before the strange sound started up again. I could now clearly hear that the noise was coming from within the downspout of our eavestrough. It was the not quite frantic, but persistent sound of little claws scratching on the metal pipe. The noise was coming from where the pipe kinks at about two metres off the ground.  Something was clearly trapped halfway up the pipe, and trying to scale it to get out, rather than just slide out the bottom. 

Knowing that I couldn’t leave it in there, I knocked on the side. I hoped it would startle and escape so I watched the end of the downspout extension carefully.  Nothing. The scratching began again, now it was frantic. I knocked a little harder still nothing came out of the end. Then there was even more scratching.

I was terrified that this was a rat. There’s been a lot of construction in our neighborhood and reports of rat sightings in the community group have increased. Still, I knew that if it was a rat, I REALLY had to get it out because I didn’t want that thing anywhere near my house. The only logical course I could see was to bang on the side one more time, this time a little harder. In the process I knocked off the long tube attached to the end of the downspout, so the mouth of the downspout was now at my ankles. 

I was paralyzed. I didn’t want to make any noise, out of fear that a rat would drop out onto my feet. I knew the any movement could be enough to scare it into letting go, but I HAD to move away. As I began to step backwards a bird flew out of the opening and into the neighbours tree. I let out a squeak, but it it was one of relief. I don’t know who was happier the bird to be out of the pipe or me because it wasn’t a damn rat!!